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THE 


DAWN MEADOW 


G. A. DENNEN 

M 



BOSTON 

RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE GORHAM PRESS 

1911 



Copyright 1911 by Richard 0, Badger 
AU Rights Reserved 






The Gorham Press, Boston, U, S, A, 

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THE DAWN MEADOW 

Chapter I 

T he Sierras are full of surprises. Saw- 
toothed and ragged, they stretch their 
mighty bulk lengthwise of the continent. 
In winter they present a solid front of 
snow, ten feet on the level, to the winds that 
sweep across the plains. But at the first touch of 
spring they begin to reveal beauties that they 
have hidden from us, like hearts capable of the 
noblest friendship, until better acquaintance. 
Then the leaves come out on the alders; the dainty 
azaleas begin to bud. Snow plants show the first 
scarlet blooms, and leafy tangles make a harmony 
of freshest green. 

But the sweetest of all the Sierras’ surprises are 
the mountain meadows, set often among the most 
forbidding cliffs. They are watered by streams 
of melted snow until they are like emeralds in the 
richness of their coloring, starred with flowers, and 
fringed with sugar pines, firs, or aspens. All the 
spring days, that lengthen on into the summer, 
these meadows are flooded with sunshine and 
bathed in the trickle of a thousand tiny rivulets. 
To stumble upon one of them among rough cliffs, 
guarded by its calm, uplifted pines, is like finding 
one’s way back for a little to the dawn of life — 
5 


6 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


it is so fresh, so newly created, so set apart and 
overflowing with vernal sunshine and warm air 
that tangs with life in the nostril. To one who 
lingers in such a spot there is neither yesterday 
nor tomorrow. Only today calls, holding in its 
arms the gifts of health, long thoughts, free sky, 
and silence. 

Mrs. Onverell might always be counted upon 
to do the unexpected thing. It was this quality 
in her which charmed people most, unless they 
happened to be depending upon her for something. 
Then admiration was mingled with other feelings. 
This quality, more than any other, made her a 
social leader in San Francisco, city of the unex- 
pected and the bizarre. Strange extremes met 
in her; she combined a real love of nature, the 
life of wood and stream, with a passion for dress, 
frivolities, and crowded streets. 

It was also Mrs. Onverell’s talent for the unex- 
pected that laid the foundation for this story. 
In one of the most inaccessible corners of the 
Sierras, approached only by the narrowest of horse- 
back trails, which ran perilously along the edge 
of a great cliff, lay one hundred and twenty acres 
of lovely mountain meadow. Cliffs surrounded 
it for a thousand feet or more on all sides. Mrs. 
Onverell had stumbled on it, by chance, during a 
hunting expedition with her husband. Its beauty 
and isolation caught at her heart-strings, for it 
was the season with her when the needle of her 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


7 


nature pointed toward the open. There was only 
one possible inlet to the little retreat which lay 
like a jewel among its pointed facets. This was 
by way of crawling underneath a gigantic, over- 
hanging rock, whence they emerged, dusty and 
breathless, on the further side. 

They stood and looked at it with exclamations 
of delight, captive at once to its charm. Majes- 
tic granite walls clasped it on every side so secure- 
ly that, without artificial trails, only wild animals 
could find a way up or down. On the north these 
cliffs were sculptured into domes and battlements 
of rare beauty, fifteen hundred feet high. Hardy 
junipers had found a scanty but secure foothold 
upon the shoulders of these northern cliffs, and 
every ridge that cut their surface was the home of 
wonderful brakes and ferns, shoulder high. The 
centre of the basin was a waving lawn of greenest 
grass, already starred with wild flowers; its shores 
were tall groves of pine and fir. 

“What a little paradise!” cried Mrs. Onverell. 
“Buy it for me and we’ll build a bungalow, where 
we can come whenever we get tired of the world. ” 

“Big Jim,” as those who knew him called the 
six-foot fellow, had the nature of a nice, clean- 
minded boy. He had not been married long 
enough, even in ten years, to have gotten over the 
wonder of it. Far more knowledge of the world 
and its ways looked out from her soft blue eyes 
than from his brown ones. In their household 


8 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


her will was to him a beautiful law. It was the 
same to her, and so they achieved a oneness of 
mind that made for harmony. Jim accepted his 
happiness without question, and never analyzed 
it to see if it could be bettered. 

The suggestion of a little refuge, where they 
could come and be together, touched him so deeply 
that the quick moisture came to his eyes. 

“You wouldn’t be lonely.^” he questioned her 
as one who would be contradicted. “It’s awfully 
far away and quiet. ” 

“Far away!” she exclaimed, nestling close to 
him with a little shiver, “I should say it was far 
away! If that great boulder should fall we’d be 
as much cut off from the rest of the world as if 
we’d never been created. That’s what makes it 
so nice and different.” 

“It might be managed,” said Jim, reflectively, 
“if we could blast that entrance wide enough 
without upsetting the boulder. The lumber 
could be packed up on burros, and there’s rock 
enough at hand for all the foundation and chim- 
neys and pillars we want. ” 

“You’ll do it, Jim?” she pleaded. 

“H’m, it would be a difficult proposition — a 
matter of months, probably — ” 

“But I want it!” 

“Well, Mayme, we’ll see.” 

Of course he built her the bungalow. There- 
upon it became a nine days’ topic at luncheon or 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


9 


reception, and all Mrs. OnverelTs friends com- 
mented, criticised, and envied. Mrs. Onverell 
was possessed of sufficient energy and initiative 
to make all her doings full of interest, and the ex- 
clusive little house-parties that she began at once 
to give became astonishingly popular. Soon it 
was no unusual thing for social leader or society 
bud to leave innumerable engagements and go 
for a considerable journey by train and horse- 
back to the little mountain meadow. 

Mrs. Onverell planned her parties regardless of 
times or seasons, whenever the call of the open 
sounded in her heart. So it surprised nobody 
that the very height of Grand Opera season should 
find her with face set toward the mountains. 
Caruso had never been in better voice. Sem- 
brich and Gadski were drawing the suburbanites 
in crowds to the city. She had secured a box for 
the season and had enjoyed the first two perform- 
ances as they merited. Then, quite suddenly, 
as Onverell helped her out of the carriage on the 
second night, her mood changed. 

“Jim, we ’re going to give a house-party over Sun- 
day, ” she declared. “ Perhaps that will help me to 
get decently through with the woes of those Wagner 
people. They sing theirs to an audience. I want 
to go and tell mine to the birds and squirrels. ” 

“But — ” said Jim. 

“You need a rest. You are killing yourself with 
business. ” 


10 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


Onverell smiled whimsically. “You won’t find 
any one to go with you this week,” he said. 

“Oh, yes, I will. There’s Mrs. Vance. She’s 
crazy to get away from all her relatives-in-law, 
who are trying to break things up between her and 
Fred. Then there’s Ethel Stanton. Her people 
are doing the Orient, and she told me tonight that 
she couldn’t keep up the social pace any longer. 
She said she’d rather have a good night’s sleep 
than to hear an all-star cast sing her favorite 
opera. She’s longing to commune with Nature.” 

“You’d better bring Bob Forrest along then.” 

“Ah, sits the wind in that quarter?” 

“Decidedly. Bob can fish with me by day and 
make love to Ethel in the evening. We’ll be 
helping along a very pretty romance. ” 

“It’s all right, is it, Jim? Ethel is born to the 
purple, you know. ” 

“Oh, Forrest is all right. He puts through 
some of the biggest real estate deals in the city. 
He belongs to all the best clubs; he’s no end of a 
good fellow.” 

“Ask him, then, by all means. Perhaps we’ll 
have another ‘engagement of interest’ to an- 
nounce on our return. ” 

“I fancy it’s an accomplished fact already. 
Ethel ’s father has been keen on it for some time. 
He thinks Forrest is bound to be a big man, and 
he wants to see Ethel settled. ” 

“Tell him to be ready by Thursday,” said Mrs. 
Onverell. 


Chapter II 


T his was how it happened that a party of 
four found themselves on the veranda 
of Mrs. Onverell’s mountain bungalow 
about sunset of Thursday, the seven- 
teenth of April. Only four, for Mrs. Vance had 
weakened at the last moment. The bungalow 
was a long and rather rambling structure of bat- 
tened boards, left to be stained by time and 
weather. Its great beauty lay in the massive 
rock foundation and supporting pillars, which 
made it seem a natural outgrowth of its surround- 
ings. The house was deceptively luxurious in its 
appointments. The broad veranda was as large 
as a living room, and was furnished with rugs, 
couches, and lounging chairs. 

The evening air at this altitude was cold and 
ethereally pure. The meadow grass on all sides 
was starred with blue-eyes and mountain daisies. 
A pink flush was creeping into the sky; the woods 
that fringed the surrounding cliffs had already 
taken on their twilight air of mystery. At their 
edge, great sugar pines towered two hundred feet 
into the air, shutting out all but a scant circle of 
sky from the meadow below. Bright-hued birds 
called and fluttered among the branches of the 
11 


12 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


firs, and the mountain-brook that divided the 
meadow had lost its morning laughter and seemed 
to be whispering secret things of the approaching 
night. 

Mrs. Onverell stood at the veranda rail and 
watched the creeping shadows. Her eyes were 
dreamy, and she twisted the ribbons of her gar- 
den hat between her fingers. Hearing a step be- 
side her she half turned her head. It was her 
husband. He put an arm about her shoulders. 

“Rather fine thing in the line of sunsets,” he 
said, his gaze resting with pleasure on the rosy 
sky and the cliffs, which were taking on opal tints. 
“Forrest and I made a good catch this afternoon. 
If we’re going to come here often, though, we’ll 
have to stock the stream. It’s such a limited 
space to work, hardly a mile at most.” 

“And there’s really no way of following the 
stream up beyond the meadow?” 

“None that I have found. The water seeps 
through the cliff in some way at a point about a 
hundred and fifty feet above the meadow, and then 
slides down over rock as smooth as ice. We 
seem to be in a sort of pocket, perhaps hollowed 
out by the original stream when it was a really 
imposing torrent.” 

She crept a little closer to him. “It’s such a 
delightful, lonesome, shivery sort of a place, Jim. 
It makes me feel as I used as a child, when I told 
myself ghost stories in the dark. Sometimes I’m 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


13 


on the verge of being really frightened. That’s 
why I like it so much. ” 

“Here’s Forrest now,” said Onverell. “Hello, 
Bob, it’s pretty near time to dress for dinner.” 

“I’m glad to hear that,” exclaimed a hearty 
voice. “I’m as hungry as a fox.” 

Mrs. Onverell turned to greet the young man 
who came forward. He was broad-shouldered, 
and his clean-shaven face wore a genial smile 
that was worth thousands to him in his social 
and business relations. It was easy to see why 
he was known as a good fellow, yet the keen- 
ness of his eyes contradicted the rest of his face. 
Also there were shadows beneath them, and lines 
about his mouth that told of nervous strain. A 
man pays somehow for being one of the foremost 
real estate manipulators in a big city at the age of 
thirty. It was easy to see that this man had 
paid in nerve and brain force. His hands were 
seldom at rest; the muscles of his eyes twitched. 
When he was not absorbed in the full swing of 
business, he craved excitement in some other 
form. Only a desire to please Onverell, whom 
he was trying to interest in a big hotel project, 
would have brought him to this quiet, isolated 
nook. His mind was constantly busy with de- 
tails, even while he talked and laughed in ap- 
parent whole-hearted enjoyment. 

Now, catching Mrs. Onverell’s regretful glance 
at the softly flushing sky, he responded to her 
mood with ready sympathy. 


14 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“We can’t go in while that sunset lasts,” he 
said. “We’ll feed our aesthetic natures and let 
the mere animal instincts wait.” 

“Besides,” said Mrs. Onverell, “our party isn’t 
complete yet. ” 

“Not complete?” questioned Onverell in sur- 
prise, “why, who else — ” 

“It’s a man, Jim, or she would have told you,” 
said a voice behind them. It was a charming 
voice, with a delicate accent of the south. A 
tall, graceful girl rose from a porch chair near one 
of the pillars and advanced toward them. She 
had gray eyes that could no more keep from giv- 
ing coquettish glances than a kitten’s, and a red 
mouth all ready to break into smiles or droop like 
a grieved child’s. 

“It is somebody she was afraid you’d object 
to,” she continued mischievously, “so she kept 
it a secret until it was too late for you to do any- 
thing. ” 

Mrs. Onverell flushed somewhat guiltily, and 
they all laughed. 

“You are speaking from experience of course, 
Ethel,” said Forrest. 

The pretty girl turned her head to look at him 
from under her long lashes. 

“Not at all,” she replied. “Men know things 
from experience. A woman just knows them.” 

“It’s another of Mayme’s discoveries, I’ll 
wager,” said Onverell. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


15 


They laughed again. Mrs. OnverelTs fond- 
ness for the unusual displayed itself occasionally 
in what she called “social discoveries.” These 
were people whose odd or romantic qualities had 
caught her capricious fancy. By virtue of her 
position as a social leader she insisted upon in- 
troducing them widely, sometimes with disastrous 
results. 

“Last June it was the Baba Berendi,” went on 
Ethel. “His hair was long and greasy, and he 
called up spirits from the vasty deep. The 
Christmas before it was a young Japanese poet, 
and he recited odes to her charms in the dead of 
night. I wonder what it is now.” 

“Tell us, Mrs. Onverell,” coaxed Forrest with 
his genial laugh. 

Mrs. Onverell tilted her chin stubbornly. “Amuse 
yourselves by guessing, ” she replied. “ It will give 
you something to talk about.” 

“What a slander on our conversational powers!” 
exclaimed the girl. “But I’ll forgive you be- 
cause I’ve had such a beautiful day. I’ve been 
picking all the blue-eyes in the meadow. See.” 
She stretched out her hands to them, full of the 
delicate blossoms. 

She might have been a portrait by Sargent, 
against the dark background of shadow behind 
her. Her hair was light and curled softly about 
her face, her eyes were full of contradictions. 
Coquetry and conscious power played over the 


16 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


surface of something deeper, like sunlight over a 
lake. The changing expressions of her face showed 
her sensitively strung, like a fine violin. 

Jaded men, watching her or speaking to her, 
often found that she touched something in them 
back to life; then, as curiously, disappointed their 
awakened sensibilities. Yet she seemed one on 
whom a high destiny waited. Robert Forrest 
thought that he had found it for her when he 
should make her mistress of a certain house on 
Nob Hill. He approached her now with an air 
of possession and her answering smile was quick 
and warm. 

“Tell me who the last guest is to be, ” she coaxed 
again. 

“You are missing the sunset, dear,” said Mrs. 
Onverell. 

“I might better have stayed with the fiowers!” 
she declared. “I hated to stop gathering them. 
I want to fill every vase in the house.” 

“Onverell,” said Forrest sternly, “tell us, do 
you know, or do you not know who is this myste- 
rious last guest?” 

The spell of the open was at work with them, 
even in these few hours. Small happenings had 
attained importance, interest in one’s fellows had 
become no longer a virtue, but a natural impulse. 

“So that’s why Jose rode off with the two 
horses this morning?” questioned Ethel. “I 
suppose he went to the Junction to meet the train. 
I heard it whistle long ago.” 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


17 


“It is quite time they were here now,” said 
Mrs. Onverell. “Listen and you will hear the 
rumble the horses make coming through the Jaws 
of Death.” 

“What is that?” queried Ethel. 

“That’s what we call the big hole that Jim 
blasted out of the cliff, beneath the overhanging 
boulder. I named it so because it’s the only en- 
trance to Paradise. It is far more convenient 
than a knocker or doorbell, for it gives one at 
least five minutes warning of visitors.” 

“What a name! It makes a man shiver,” 
declared Forrest. One could see at times how 
much his animation was forced, as if he held 
weariness and strain at arm’s length. 

“It isn’t the name that frightens me,” said 
Ethel, “it’s that huge rock poised over one’s 
head with such apparent insecurity. What would 
happen if it fell?” 

Onverell, feeling the demand of the unanswered 
question, roused himself to a survey of the nar- 
row pass which gave entrance to the meadow. 
It seemed dark and forbidding; night had already 
gathered there. 

“If you were underneath when it fell, what 
happened to you afterwards would depend upon 
your past life,” he said. “If you happened to 
be on the outside, this little Paradise in here would 
be snatched forever from your longing eyes. ” 

“Is there really no other way to get in?” she 
questioned. 


18 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“I have never found any other.” 

“Suppose you were on this side when it fell?” 
she persisted. Her eyes had grown dark with a 
vague apprehension. 

“The birds of the air would come and strew 
leaves over your bleached bones. ” 

“Do you mean that we couldn’t get out?” 
asked Forrest, incredulously. 

“That boulder is merely a fragment of the cliff. 
Any convulsion big enough to make it fall would 
probably bring the two sides of the cliff together 
in a mass of debris. They’re only a trail’s width 
apart. ” 

There was half a moment of silence. His 
description gathered force from the frowning 
shadows that stole out from the base of the cliff 
across the meadow. 

“Jim, you wretch!” exclaimed Mrs. Onverell. 

Forrest’s big, hearty laugh broke the momentary 
tension. 

“The old rock has stayed in place for so many 
centuries that I think we may safely count upon 
it a little longer, ” he said. 

The sun, about to fall behind the cliffs, poured 
a flood of purest gold into the cup-like valley 
where the meadow lay, filling it until it over- 
flowed. At the same time a hollow rumble 
echoed from the pass. 

“There comes the mysterious guest!” ex- 
claimed Onverell. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


19 


“Is he young or old?” queried Ethel. 

Mrs. Onverell smiled provokingly. 

Now the horsemen came into view at the lower 
end of the meadow. The horses were wet with 
the sharp pull up grade from the railroad junc- 
tion fourteen miles away. The man who rode 
ahead wore a check shirt, a red bandanna, and a 
broad sombrero. As he drew nearer one could 
note that there was something odd in his appear- 
ance. The lower part of his face seemed to have 
been crushed in, perhaps by the hoof of a horse. 
The effect was to give his whole countenance an 
expression of deepest gloom, and the voice in 
which he poured out a stream of mild profanity 
against his weary horse, was mournful in the ex- 
treme. 

“Where did you get him?” questioned Forrest 
of Onverell. 

“Jose? He’s a bit of local color I hired to 
complete the scenery. George Bisbee recom- 
mended him to me as the biggest liar in four 
counties. Listen to him. ” 

The man’s voice floated up to them clearly. 

“Git right, old lady,” he was saying sorrow- 
fully to the horse. “Don’t take sech blamed 
advantage of your sex. Fine airs can’t be put up 
with in bosses, they’re bad enough in wimmin.” 

“Careful, Jose,” called Mr. Onverell. “The 
ladies are listening. ” 


20 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


Jose raised his head and regarded him solemn- 
ly. “Taint safe for a man to express his mind 
anywheres,” he lamented. “Whoa, you durn 
critter. ” 

He dismounted from his horse. The other 
rider did the same. Those on the veranda leaned 
forward with lively curiosity as he turned toward 
the stone steps that formed the approach. They 
noticed that he moved with a certain freedom and 
swiftness, like a man accustomed to the woods or 
plains. 

“Who is he, Mayme.^” murmured Onverell. 
“You’ve got to tell us now.” 

“His muscles are in training,” said Forrest. 
“He’s some kind of an athlete.” 

The stranger ’s hat was drawn low over his face, 
and they had caught no glimpse of it. He was 
slim and muscular. As he mounted the steps he 
seemed to be unusually tall, but his shoulders 
were stooped as if he had carried heavy burdens, 
either of mind or body. While they watched he 
reached the veranda and stood uncertain, lifting 
his hat. The rays of the sun fell across his face. 

“Why, it is Charley Strong!” exclaimed For- 
rest, looking startled. 

“Mayme,” said Onverell, almost harshly. 
“You certainly don’t expect us to receive him 
here?” 

“I certainly do,” said Mrs. Onverell. “He’s 
brilliant and entertaining. Mrs. Stewart Wag- 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


21 


ner had him to dinner last week, and Mrs. De 
Lamo gave an evening the week before where he 
spoke about the Yosemite Indians. I’m not 
afraid we ’ll be contaminated. ” 

“Well, I can stand a good deal,” muttered 
Jim, “but — ” 

Mrs. Onverell stepped forward to greet the 
new comer, and Forrest looked at Jim with amused 
eyes. 

“She’s quite refreshingly daring,” he mur- 
mured. 

“We are glad to see you, Mr. Strong,” said 
Mrs. Onverell, holding out her hand with de- 
liberate friendliness. “I hope you didn’t find the 
trip up to our mountain nest too long and tire- 
some. ” 

The stranger bent over her hand, and for the 
first time his features were distinctly visible. He 
had dark hair, gray already at the temples. His 
dark eyes wore a strange expression, as if some 
heavy shadow that had brooded within them was 
gradually being consumed by a persistent inner 
fire of hope and courage, as the sun consumes the 
morning mist. Just now his face had lighted 
remarkably at the warmth of Mrs. Onverell ’s 
greeting, as if it were an unexpected thing. 

“It was a fine ride,” he declared in a low and 
rather musical voice, “and leads to so much beauty 
as to justify a far rougher trip. What do you call 
this charming place, Mrs. Onverell?” 


22 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“Sierra del Nido, the mountain nest. I am 
glad you find it beautiful. This is my husband; 
Jim, this is Mr. Strong. ” 

Big Jim shook hands with him rather per- 
functorily, and the expression of his face was 
grave. But Ethel’s eyes danced with her enjoy- 
ment of a difficult situation. She turned half 
aside, her unconsciously coquettish glance studied 
his face. 

“Mr. Forrest,” said Mrs. Onverell, “have you 
met Mr. Strong?” 

“Yes,” said Forrest with his genial smile. He 
was playing his hostess ’ lead with a good grace, as 
usual. “I’ve met Mr. Strong several times. We 
crossed the continent in the same Pullman not 
long ago — ” 

He stopped, for the man before him was not 
listening. Neither did he seem to notice Forrest’s 
outstretched hand. His gaze was riveted with a 
sudden, burning intensity on somebody behind 
Forrest. His form seemed to stiffen; his hand 
dropped to his side. Forrest turned involuntarily 
to discover the object of that intent gaze, and saw, 
with a start, that Ethel stood at his elbow. 

“Mr. Strong,” she exclaimed, “how unexpected 
and how nice!” 

The effect was all she meant it should be. The 
general look of astonishment at her greeting was 
punctuated by Forrest’s rather sharp question. 

“Do you know Mr. Strong, Ethel?” 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


2S 


Ethel smiled up into the thin, dark face. 

“We had a dramatic introduction,” she said. 
“Scene, the cliff boulevard at Lucerne; time, 
late afternoon; characters, two run-away horses, 
and a girl passing rapidly into a state of abject 
terror; enter a man, appearing suddenly out of no- 
where. He stops the horses at the edge of the 
cliff. I was the girl; the man was Mr. Strong.” 

She hesitated. The quick ebbing of blood 
from her face gave evidence that it had been an 
intense experience. A momentary wonder was 
born in them all. Had it stopped there or was 
there more that lay behind her silence Forrest 
turned away with a doubt born in his heart. 

Mrs. Onverell broke the pause. 

“And now it is really time to dress for dinner. 
Our last guest has arrived, and the bell will ring 
in half an hour.” 

“Mercy, I never dressed in half an hour in my 
life!” exclaimed Ethel in pretty dismay. 

“That was a city toilet,” murmured Mrs. On- 
verell in her ear. “There was somebody to dress 
for there.” 

Ethel made no reply, but her glance sought the 
dark face of the stranger. There was a little fear 
in it and some mischief. She was right; he was 
watching her, and his grave look studied her until 
the color dyed her cheeks. He smiled down at 
her as one smiles at a pretty child. 


24 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“Jim,” said Mrs. Onverell, laying her hand on 
her husband’s arm, “ask Ikura to show Mr. 
Strong to the room that was arranged for him. ” 

Both look and touch seemed to ask a half for- 
giveness, and Big Jim’s face softened. 

“All right, Mayme,” he said, with a return to 
cheerfulness. “This way, Mr. Strong,” and they 
disappeared within the house. 

Twilight had settled over the forest; the shad- 
ows were heavy; mysterious sounds were borne 
on the night wind, and strange scents. Rex, the 
collie, growled and the hair rose on his back. 
Ethel stood as if occupied with some absorbing 
thought. She patted his head with a soothing 
hand. 

“Come, Ethel,” said Mrs. Onverell, looking 
back. 

“Mrs. Onverell,” said the girl slowly, “who 
is Mr. Strong Pardon me for asking, but why 
should he not come here like other men?” 

Mrs. Onverell paused. 

“You have never heard anything about him, 
Ethel?” 

“No. Only, after he saved my life that time — 
I saw something of him — for a few days. I knew 
then that he was different. But I never knew 
why. I feel very grateful to him. Is there any 
reason why one can not know him?” 

“Yes and no,” said Mrs. Onverell slowly. 
“You had better let him alone, Ethel.” 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


25 


Ethel looked at her a moment. 

“He is my fellow guest in your house, Mrs. 
Onverell. That is all that I need to know about 
him. I recall my question.” 

She moved quickly away and went in at the 
house door. 

Mrs. Onverell, left on the veranda, looked after 
her. 

“I think,” she said, half aloud, “that this is 
one occasion when I would have done well to con- 
sult Jim. ” 


Chapter III 


D inner at sierra del Nido was some- 
what of a function, in spite of distance 
and difficulty of approach. Mrs. On- 
verell ’s idea of life in the open included 
many luxuries. In this way she kept a hold on 
civilization and gave herself the feeling of choice 
rather than necessity, which forms much of the 
charm of the simple life. Silver and cut glass, 
and two well trained Japanese servants, softened 
for her the asperities of house-keeping a hundred 
miles from the centre of supplies. 

Neither did Mrs. Onverell always keep her 
whole-hearted enthusiasm for the open after the 
falling of night. Then the curtains were drawn 
against the darkness that lay so heavily over the 
meadow as to be felt like a presence. Great logs 
were kindled in every fireplace to drive out the 
chill, and the hostess and her guests sat down to 
a table dainty in every appointment. 

It was Mrs. OnverelTs fancy to have the bunga- 
low lighted only by candles. She had collected a 
great variety of odd candlesticks and candelabra. 
The candles on the dining table tonight were all 
yellow, and their soft glow was caught and reflected 
from a great bowl of yellow mountain daisies in 
26 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


27 


the center. The dinner was excellent, the prin- 
cipal dish being the afternoon catch of fish. 

This had started Onverell on a series of stories 
and reminiscences of other big catches and fishy 
experiences. He was in a genial mood, and seem- 
ed determined to banish the slight constraint 
that had fallen upon the party when they gathered 
in the big living room before the meal. He told 
a story well, with a keen appreciation of its humor, 
and gradually the laughter became general and 
spontaneous. Strong sat quiet for the most part. 
From his place beside his hostess he listened or 
commented just openly enough to escape any 
suspicion of inattention. He seldom looked up 
from his plate, and no one seemed to speak to him 
directly. When he did glance about him, the 
keenness of his look was almost startling in its 
swift contrast to his usual impassiveness. In 
spite of themselves there was not one at the table 
who did not wonder what might be passing in the 
mind of this man who sat so quietly. They were 
aware that nothing in their own experience could 
give them the key, and his silence became invested 
with the charm of mystery. 

“He can’t help dominating every other in- 
dividuality in the room,” thought Ethel. She 
was angry with him because he had not even seen 
that she wore a low-neck gown of pale blue, and 
a collar of brilliants. “Only a strong nature 
could be really wicked, I suppose,” she mused. 


28 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


studying him with the coquettish side glance of 
her gray eyes. “Other men play at it and balk 
the consequences.” 

Again she glanced at him. He was looking at 
his plate. 

“Don’t you agree with me?” she asked, sud- 
denly with a pretty upward inflection. 

“You haven ’t told me with what I am to agree, ” 
he replied at once, without raising his eyes. 

The restless, feminine impulse within her was 
baffled, but not quieted. She made another effort. 

“This effect of candles — isn’t it pretty and 
odd—” 

“And most becoming,” he finished for her, 
still without looking up. Her laugh was one of 
mingled triumph and exasperation. She leaned 
forward to look at the twinkling little lights 
through half closed lids. The something deeper 
in her eyes came to the surface for a moment and 
looked out. “I love candles,” she said, “they 
suggest so much more than they reveal. ” 

“They are the poetry of light,” answered 
Strong, quickly. He bent toward her. “They 
always remind me of the Yucca on the hills of the 
south,” he went on in a low tone that included 
her only. “The Indians call them ‘God’s can- 
dles.’ ” 

^Her face lighted with pleasure at the pretty 
figure, as he meant it should. Her lips parted, 
her whole face softened into tender beauty. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


29 


“Mr. Strong/' said Mrs. OnverelTs voice in- 
cisively. 

Strong raised his head. His hostess was re- 
garding them. 

“Are you going to let these two men do all the 
boasting?” she questioned, lightly. “Their stor- 
ies are growing exceedingly fishy. Can’t you do 
better? You, who have traveled so much, have 
you never caught a whale or, perhaps, had a 
deadly encounter with an octopus?” 

Ethel’s face changed; the old coquettish, side- 
glance returned. She clapped her hands to- 
gether softly. “Tell us the most interesting ex- 
perience you ever had, ” she begged. 

Strong bowed. His face had become as ex- 
pressionless as a mask, but his fingers tightened 
around his wine-glass. The words were a com- 
mand and he knew them as such. This was the 
price he was to pay for sitting at dinner in this 
house, for wearing the dress of the American 
gentleman. This was the reason he was here be- 
side these women in their delicate gowns, with 
necks and arms of dazzling whiteness and eyes 
that glowed like stars. His fatally ready power 
to entertain, experiences to draw from such as 
they could only guess, and a point of view daring- 
ly original, all these Mrs. Onverell knew and had 
bargained for. And the price — he raised his eyes 
to the girl opposite. Her lips were parted a little 
in anticipation; her eyes seemed once more the 


30 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


home of dreams. Something that had leaped 
into his, at Mrs. OnverelTs words, died out. He 
turned in his chair a little, so as to face them all, 
and began at once, quietly. 

“A year ago tonight I was in the city of Los 
Angeles. The Fiesta was in full swing.” 

He had a vivid and forceful narrative power. 
In a moment he had made them see long streets 
crowded with people in the fantastic costumes of 
a carnival night. Through the lobby of the hotel, 
where he stood talking with others, the maskers 
had run in and out, showering confetti and blow- 
ing shrilly upon horns or whistles. The listeners 
caught, as he spoke, the merry riot of sound and 
color, the spirit of irresponsible gaiety that only 
a southern city on carnival night can ever know. 

“I grew enthusiastic at last,” he said, “and 
tried to persuade the other men to go out with 
me among the maskers. But one was tired and 
the other was bored, and they left me alone, short- 
ly, to do as I liked. As for me, my blood always 
flows faster when I see the world make merry, and 
laughter stimulates like wine. I found a place in 
the balcony of the lobby and watched the gay 
comedy going on below. 

“All at once I heard a sound behind me that 
was like a sob. I turned. A young lady, — or was 
it a child? — in a long cloak of pale blue, sat in an 
arm chair by the rail beside me and looked down 
also on the scene below. I glanced at her and 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


31 


thought I must have been mistaken, for her 
quaint, little face with its big, dark eyes was 
full of delighted laughter at the antics of a jolly 
clown. 

“So I turned away again, but in a moment the 
sob was repeated, unmistakably, this time. And 
sure enough, when I looked the black head was 
buried in the folds of a scarf; the small form was 
trembling. At the moment it seemed to me that 
I saw only a child in trouble, and I crossed over 
to her. 

“ ‘What could any one do to make you happy 
I asked. 

“She raised her head quickly, as if startled. 
But perhaps my genuine interest reassured her, 
for she answered me without hesitation, with the 
prettiest Italian accent that confirmed the im- 
pression of her hair and eyes. 

“ ‘Oh, don’t you love it all!’ she exclaimed, 
clasping her tiny hands. ‘I know you do, for I 
saw you watching. I would give all my rings and 
my blue parrot to go out on the beautiful streets 
among the merry-makers. Think, signor, I have 
never seen a carnival!’ 

“ ‘Why not.^’ I found myself asking. ‘In 
your country — ’ 

“ ‘I have been in a convent until a month ago. 
Now I am dying — oh, but dying to be out there, 
and they won’t let me.’ 

“ ‘Who are they.?’ I questioned, stupidly, 
again. 


32 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


^*Her face grew so white that I repented of the 
'question, and a look came into her eyes that I 
had seen too often not to recognize — ^fear. 

“ ‘They are — they — ’,she answered. Then she 
shrugged her shoulders as if dropping off a bur- 
den, and looked up into my face with the heaven- 
ly innocence of a trusting child. 

“ ‘Signor,’ she said, ‘it’s very nice out there on 
the street, isn’t it?’ 

“ ‘Indeed it is, ’ I answered, truthfully. 

“She leaned forward and her eyes grew very 
bright. ‘If you should ask me to go there just 
for a few moments, it would be very rude of me to 
refuse, wouldn’t it?’ 

“My face must have expressed some dismay, 
for she hurried on without giving me a chance to 
reply. 

“ ‘They have gone and left me here to watch. 
They will be gone, oh, quite some time. They 
are drinking chianti and smoking black cigars. 
Oh, they are well amused. But I — I die of long- 
ing!’ 

“ ‘But—’ I said. 

“ ‘I wouldn’t go alone, of course,’ she went on, 
not noticing the interruption. ‘That would be a 
sin. I should deserve to be punished. But with 
you — you are so kind — and you love the carnival. 
You will take me?’ 

“ ‘Yes,’ I said, and I assure you I had no 
thought but that I was giving pleasure to a lonely 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


33 


child. She slipped her hand into mine, and to- 
gether we went down the stairs and across the 
lobby. There were many naval officers at the 
hotel, from a battleship anchored at the break- 
water, and several distinguished foreign guests 
whose names I had noticed in the register. Some 
of these wore uniforms also, and the lobby pre- 
sented a gay picture. She held tightly to my 
hand as we passed through, and more than one 
curious glance followed us. 

“When the door closed behind us and we step- 
ped out into the street, I felt her tremble again 
and looked down at her. Her little dark face was 
glowing with such delight that I felt a pain at my 
heart to see it. What a starved little soul this 
must be to find such rapture in mere color and 
motion! Or, was it the brief sense of freedom? 
In either case I was glad I had listened to her 
pleading. I threw myself into the adventure 
with full zest, meaning to give her an hour of per- 
fect happiness and to return her safely to her big 
arm chair before the mysterious ‘they’ should 
come to claim her. 

“So we joined the merry crowd of maskers. I 
bought her confetti, candy and a bunch of bright 
colored fiowers, which she clasped to her breast 
ardently, nibbling at the chocolates. 

“ ‘Candy, all my own!’ she said, ‘and fiowers, 
all mine! They tell me I am rich. How can 
that be, when I have no money to spend? I 
never had candy and flowers all mine before. ’ 


34 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“We were carried along by the moving crowd, 
often swept from our feet by the headlong rush 
of the maskers, and half stunned by the noise. 
To see the intensity of her joy was to realize her 
Italian birthright. We both lost account of time 
or direction, and were fighting our way through 
the crowds, breathless with laughter, when sud- 
denly my little companion caught my arm in a 
convulsive grasp. 

“ ‘There they are!’ she exclaimed, stopping 
short, plainly a prey to overwhelming terror. 

“ ‘Who — where?’ I questioned, astonished at 
the sudden change in her. 

“ ‘There! my husband and the archbishop, in 
that doorway.’ 

“ ‘Your — your husband ! ’ 

“ ‘Yes — in that doorway. Oh, don’t let him 
see me — I — I think he would kill me. ’ 

“She still clung to my arm. My gaze followed 
hers, and then I saw him — the vicious, low-brow- 
ed face; the mean, undersized frame. The shadow 
of his dark look seemed to fall upon the merry 
maskers who passed him and take the life and 
color from them. I felt her hands grow cold as 
ice. 

“ ‘How old are you?’ I asked, incredulous. 

“ ‘Fifteen years, signor.’ 

“ ‘Fifteen years!’ I looked at the sinister face 
again. The man was talking to some one beside 
him, tall, sleek, smooth shaven, — the archbishop. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


S5 


doubtless. Then certain names I had read that 
afternoon in the hotel register came to my mind. 
‘Count Pietro Pomponi, Contessa Pomponi and 
maid. ’ 

“So this was the little Contessa Pomponi. I 
had been in Rome at the time of their elaborate 
wedding. Poor, frightened child; this Count 
Pietro sucked up her enormous wealth like a 
human octopus, with occasional sops flung to the 
church. 

“I did not know whether he had seen her — 
with all my soul I hoped not. But his glance was 
sly and uncertain, slipping from one point to 
another, and one could not be sure. Only one 
course was open to us; to make our way back to 
the hotel without a moment’s delay and establish 
the little Countess safely in her rooms before he 
returned. But this was more easily conceived 
than carried out. The crowd that had been our 
friends, making merry with us, now became cruel, 
mocking devils to pluck us back from safety. It 
was impossible to make more than a few steps at 
a time. The carnival had reached its height; 
disorder and riot were growing frequent, and 
the pale little Countess clung to my arm with 
ever increasing terror. 

“ ‘Quickly! Quickly! signor,’ she kept mur- 
muring in my ear, ‘please, please hurry.’ And 
still the throng surged between us and our hope 
of escape, until she faltered and became exhausted. 


36 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“ ‘Rest a moment under this archway,’ I urged 
her, but she shook her head. 

“ ‘Please hurry,’ she implored, and we struggled 
on. 

“At last, after what seemed hours of ceaseless 
effort, when heart and brain were exhausted, we 
came in sight of the hotel. 

“ ‘Courage!’ I called out to her, ‘now we are 
safe.’ 

“The crowd shifted at the moment, seeking the 
cause of some new excitement to be heard down 
the street. I caught her hand and hurried through 
an open space, crossed a street, half carrying her, 
pushed her with words of hope and courage up 
to the side door of the hotel lobby — there stood 
the husband waiting for us with the archbishop 
smiling beside him. 

“The little figure seemed to shrivel and grow 
helpless like an old woman’s. The big, black eyes 
wore an expression I shall never forget. 

“ ‘I am afraid!’ she cried, ‘I am afraid.’ 

“In doubt what to say or do, I stared at the two 
standing there silent. On the husband’s face 
there was a look that startled me — it was hate, 
unmistakable and cruel. While enjoying her 
wealth, he found the girl- wife only a burden — 
perhaps a burden to be gotten rid of as soon as 
convenient. It might even be that I had proved 
an unconscious factor in bringing about this re- 
sult. For the sinister little man held out his 
hand. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


37 


‘Come, Vittoria, ’ he said in wretched English, 
that I might understand the words. ‘Come, if 
your evening of pleasure is quite ended. ’ 

“The girl, clinging to my arm, made no move to 
obey. ‘I am afraid,’ she whispered, and indeed 
I was afraid for her. 

“He took a step forward. ‘What, have you 
not seen enough of the carnival? Would you 
spend more hours on the street with a stranger?’ 

“Then the bland churchman spoke. ‘Your 
place is with your husband, Vittoria. Be glad 
that he pardons your ignorance and leaves his 
door still open to you.’ 

“As I live, the girl did not understand their 
meaning. She raised her pure eyes to his face, 
wonderingly, and he had the grace to color under 
her gaze. But he held out his hand with a com- 
manding gesture, and her reverence for the church 
and her habit of obedience made her take a step 
or two toward him. So there she stood, halfway 
between us, looking back with that expression I 
cannot forget, as if craving the protection that 
our free country and kinder laws might have 
given her. What could be done? The state and 
the church were arrayed against her; both sanc- 
tioned the hideous marriage and gave her help- 
less into her husband’s power. So even while I 
stood, torn with pity and rage, the husband 
caught her by the arm and the door closed be- 
hind them. 


38 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“I quite expected a challenge to await me in 
the morning, in the old fashion. But when I 
came down to breakfast I learned that they were 
already gone. Six months later I read of her 
death. I have wondered — I have wondered how 
— she died. ’’ 

His voice had gathered intensity as he pro- 
ceeded. At times the faces of the women grew 
pale, at others he saw tears glisten on their lashes. 
The men sat absorbed. 

“CouldnT you have knocked the head off that 
little rat of a count? ” demanded Onverell, abruptly. 

“That would have been a truly satisfying pro- 
ceeding, ” said Strong, with a smile. “The tempta- 
tion was great. ” 

“But couldn’t you have done something?” 

It was Ethel who spoke. Her eyes were dark 
with intense feeling. “Americans don’t stand 
by and see such things without trying to do some- 
thing.” The words were both a challenge and 
an appeal. Her voice trembled as if with in- 
credulity. 

“Americans haven ’t that reputation, ” he answer- 
ed slowly. 

“But you — ” 

“There was nothing I could do to help, and 
much to hinder. ” 

^ “The Italian Consul, couldn’t you have ap- 
pealed to him?” 

Onverell and Forrest looked at each other; Mrs. 
Onverell studied her plate. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


39 


“He would not have believed me,” answered 
Strong. 

“Not believe the word of an American gentle- 
man?” 

Strong moved quickly, then sat quiet again. 
The eyes of all were upon him now, they seemed 
to be holding their breath. His answer came 
steadily. 

“He would have beheved the word of an Ameri- 
can gentleman. ” 

Amazement looked for a moment from the 
girl’s eyes, then she turned rather pale. Like 
one who had brushed against an unexpected 
tragedy, she was startled into silence. 

Mrs. Onverell spoke quickly. “Jim, no more 
stories tonight after that.” 

“Oh, he’s way out of the class of ordinary story 
tellers,” said Onverell, heartily. “Mine would 
only serve to remind you of the difference. ” 

“It was ripping,” declared Forrest, “but I 
was prepared. I told you I crossed the continent 
in the Pullman with Strong. We had many such 
tales in the smoker.” 

They seemed moved to a sudden sympathy for 
him. Strong bowed, but his face was once more 
expressionless, like a mask. He did not look up 
from his plate. 

It was a few moments later that the Japanese 
waiter leaned over and whispered something into 
Onverell ’s ear. 


40 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“Excuse me,” he said, turning to his wife,. 
“Jose wants me at the stables. There’s some-, 
thing wrong with the horses. ” 

“They’re not sick, are they.^” inquired Forrest. 
There was a note of uneasiness in his voice. He. 
was thinking of a certain appointment in the city 
the next afternoon which he meant to keep if it 
could be done without discourtesy to Mrs. On-, 
verell. Two days were all and more than he. 
could give to this sort of thing. 

“Not sick, I think, but unusually restless. 
They are trying to pull loose from their stalls. ” 
“How strange,” commented Mrs. Onverell, 
“they never were that way before. Do you sup-, 
pose there ’s a snake in the stable anywhere, or a 
mountain lion prowling around.^” 

“I’ll go and see,” said Onverell. 

“ Let me know if you want help, ” called Forrest 
after him. 

A moment later they heard Jose’s voice as the. 
two passed the window. 

“Ain’t a blame thing wrong that I can see. 
They won’t touch their feed and they’re just 
playin’ Sally Water with the sides of their stalls,, 
like they was scairt plum silly. ” 

“It’s pretty early for rattlers,” replied On-, 
verell, “but there might be some kind of animal — 
The voices trailed off, and in the pause that 
followed those at the table could hear a muffled.^ 
pounding as of hoofs upon a hard floor. This,^ 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


41 


too, died away, and the great silence outside, the 
silence of night and the forest, crept in upon them. 
All in a moment the shaded lights, the daintily 
appointed table, and those sitting about it in the 
garments of civilization were engulfed, lost in the 
mystery of the great unpeopled places, which 
sometimes soothes the troubled soul to peace, 
and sometimes lays cold fingers upon the heart 
until it stops for terror of the unknown. 

Those at the table were variously affected. 
Strong’s attitude became one of strained atten- 
tion; he seemed to listen with every nerve. For- 
rest moved uneasily, and his fingers played with 
his coffee spoon. Mrs. Onverell abruptly gave 
the signal to rise, and ordered the coffee brought 
to the living room where the flames were leaping 
cheerfully in the great fireplace. 


Chapter IV 


A lthough the living room was bright 
and glowing with firelight, there still 
seemed to be some sort of electrical ten- 
sion in the air. The cosy indolence of 
other evenings at Sierra del Nido was lacking. 
Forrest walked restlessly about the room for a 
few moments, touching a book or a bit of bric- 
a-brac with no realization of what he did, con- 
trolled by a nervous impulse to action of some 
sort. At last he excused himself and went out to 
see what was happening in the stables. Ethel 
glanced up at the clock. 

‘‘Just think,” she said, plaintively, “in the city 
they are waiting for the curtain to go up on Car- 
men. Here it seems already late, it has been dark 
so long. ” 

Mrs. Onverell studied her from the Morris 
chair before the fire. 

“Ethel is falling off in looks,” she thought, 
noting the shadows beneath her eyes. “She 
ought to stop going out so much.” But aloud 
she said, cheerfully, “The life of the city and the 
life of the country are two lives. ” 

“That sounds like Kipling,” said Ethel. She 
was sitting beside the table, but her eyes rested 
42 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


43 


lovingly on the open grand piano in the corner; 
her fingers tapped the chair arm, as if she were 
touching the keys. 

“You play, do you not?” asked Strong eagerly. 
Though he only looked at her occasionally, no 
movement of hers escaped him. ^ 

“Play,” echoed Mrs. Onverell, “a piano 
draws her like a magnet. She has no peace of 
mind until she is seated before it. ” 

“Play, play,” said Strong in a low, tense voice. 
Then as if realizing that his urgency had been 
without preface, he added, “it would give me 
such pleasure.” 

“I only play a little,” she returned, slowly, with 
her sidelong glance, “and that is for my friends.” 

“Then my pleasure would be all the greater,” 
he answered boldly. 

She looked up at him. They were under- 
standing each other without direct words. Both 
knew that her music would be a revelation of her- 
self, one that she shrank from making to him, 
one that he was passionately eager to have. 

“Then, perhaps, I shall learn your soul, of 
what sort it is,” he said, half aloud. 

“I beg your pardon,” she murmured, not under- 
standing the words, but he led the way to the 
piano with an air of authority that she found 
herself obeying. 

“Do you need to see the music?” he asked. 

“No, I play from memory?” 


44 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“Then I will put out these candles, if you don’t 
mind. ” 

“Not at all — Oh, Mr. Strong, what was that!” 

He had extinguished the candelabra that stood 
on the piano. But as she spoke the room was 
filled suddenly with a greenish glare in which 
objects stood out with extraordinary vividness. 
It did not disappear at once like a lightning flash, 
but lingered an appreciable time, seeming to gain 
in intensity. Then it was gone, leaving them 
staring at each other. 

“A thunder storm,” said Ethel, with a shiver. 
“I hate storms in the mountains. ” But her voice 
had an upward inflection of doubt and dismay as 
if she hoped for confirmation of her words. 

“It’s too early,” said Mrs. Onverell doubtfully, 
“we don’t have thunder storms in April.” 

Strong walked quickly to the door that led out 
onto the veranda and opened it. He stood look- 
ing out for a moment, and again he gave the 
impression of one who listened with every nerve. 

“It’s not a thunder storm,” he said, at last. 
“The night is very clear, the stars are brilliant.” 

“What could it have been?” queried Mrs. On- 
verell. 

“A meteor, perhaps.” 

The explanation seemed a good one, and they 
accepted it in default of another. Only Ethel 
looked at him doubtfully, as they returned to the 
piano. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


45 


“You don’t believe it was that?” she said, “I 
see you don’t.” 

“It may have been.” 

^‘What do you think it was?” 

"^‘The air is full of some electrical disturbance, 
yet it does not take the form of clouds and thunder. 
The horses felt it, we are all feeling it. ” 

“But you are listening, you are expecting some- 
thing. You have seen something like this before, 
haven’t you?” 

'"‘You are quick to observe — or to feel.” 

^‘Then it is true. Where did you see it before? ” 

“Off the coast of Java. It was followed by a 
tidal wave.” 

“Oh!” 

He leaned toward her to look at her curiously. 
^ ‘Would you really be afraid?” 

She moved restlessly. “I don’t know. We 
seem so far away here — so much at the mercy of 
the elements. The great mountains so close to 
Us — the silences — . ” She broke off, laughing. 
“Perhaps my conscience isn’t clear.” She stop- 
ped again, confused. Her glance fell before his. 

“It is a pretty fair test of one’s conscience to 
get so close to nature,” he answered; “and yet — ” 
his eyes questioned her commandingly. “I’m 
certain there is something in you that would re- 
spond to a grand upheaval of the elements, the 
terrible beauty of a great tempest. It would not 
be you who would tremble or cry out. ” 


46 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


Her look grew still, even a little awed. 

“It may be so,” she said. “I hope you are 
right. But if you are, then you know me better 
than I know myself. ” 

A tenderness came into his face for a moment. 
“I am inclined to believe it,” he said. “Play to 
me.” 

She turned to the piano, the capricious spirit 
within her overmastered into temporary obedi- 
ence. She played first a Chopin prelude, then a 
nocturne. It needed only a few bars to show 
that music was a passion with her. All at once 
she was swept far out of herself, as he had guessed. 
The shallow defense of coquetry with which so- 
ciety had taught her to hide the real soul of her, 
as a thing to be ashamed of, fell away before the 
great harmonies she was evoking. At first she 
was conscious of a strange feeling, as if his spirit 
stood beside her, questioning, dominating, and 
her fingers hesitated on the keys. Then she for- 
got him, while memories, hopes, dreams, past 
and present, swept over her, as the music laughed 
or sobbed. 

Voices in the room roused her after a while. 
She became aware that Forrest stood beside her. 
The sight of his familiar, genial face banished 
something eerie that lingered vaguely in her mind. 
She looked up at him, her eyes still full of dreams. 

“I’m glad you have come. Bob. I must have 
wanted you without knowing it.” 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


47 


“You’ve been playing too long,” said Forrest. 
He had little fondness for music except of the 
popular variety. “Why are you so in the dark 
here.^” He glanced at the chair where Strong 
sat, a motionless figure. “Onverell, have you a 
match?” he called. 

Ethel stood up. “Why, I believe I’m tired,” 
she said. Then she drew near him and laid her 
hand against his coat sleeve. “Must you go 
home tomorrow. Bob?” 

“It looks that way, I’ve got a big deal on. 
Half a dozen lots on the Mason tract are to be 
bid in quietly for taxes. If I can get hold of them 
it gives me practical control of the tract. Then 
I have things about where I want them — and 
you can guess what the next move will be, little 
girl?” 

A beautiful color, creeping into her face, an- 
swered him. 

A match flared up behind them and Onverell’s 
voice broke in. 

“Here’s your match. Bob. Mayme says she 
left her novel on the piano. Light up and find it, 
will you?” 

Forrest held the match to the candles and, 
raising the candelabra, turned the light full upon 
the corner where Strong’s chair was. There was 
a movement from the shadows and Strong stood 
in front of him. 


48 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“Sorry to disturb you,” Forrest said easily, 
but the other strode past with a muttered word 
and went out onto the veranda. His face was 
white and something burned in his eyes that 
stirred Forrest to quick anger. 

“Damn the fellow!” he muttered. “He has 
no business here with decent people. ” 

He felt a touch on his arm, and turned to find 
Ethel regarding him with big, startled eyes. 

“Bob,” she asked, “why isn’t Mr. Strong an 
American gentleman?” 

Forrest hesitated a moment, then an ugly look 
came into his face, altering him wonderfully. 

“Strong killed his superior officer in some kind 
of disgraceful brawl while he was in service in the 
Philippines. He was sentenced to twenty years, 
but got out after five on good behavior. ” 

The girl stood quiet for so long that he turned 
to look at her. She was very white. 

“Five years in prison!” she said, at last. 
“Where?” 

“At Bilidid.” 

“Five years — then, there must have been ex- 
tenuating circumstances ? ’ ’ 

“The senior officer was rather a brute,” ad- 
mitted Forrest. “Still, the fellow was lucky to 
escape hanging. He was drumheaded out of the 
army, and his name has been a by-word in every- 
body’s mouth for years.” 

“Oh!” said Ethel. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


49 


“He has made occasional breaks into society, 
like this one, but it doesn’t go. There are some 
things even society can’t choke down.” 

“Still he might be a gentleman,” said Ethel 
slowly. 

“Ethel!” 

“ He might ! — He might ! ” 

“Like Byron and other fascinating bad men, he 
finds his strongest champions among the women, ” 
said Forrest, with a sneer. 

Ethel met his look without flinching, though 
her color rose. The lightness was gone from her 
manner. 

“Good night,” she said, “I am going to my 
room now. No, it is not necessary for you to 
light a candle for me. Good night, everybody.” 

“Ethel, I didn’t mean — ” 

“What should you mean, Bob.'^ Good night.” 

“Hang it all,” muttered Forrest, “I might have 
remembered that a woman always pities the under 
dog.” 

“Of course,” said Mrs. Onverell, looking up 
from her book. 


Chapter V 


O UT on the veranda Strong was going 
through an hour of agony, all because 
of a girl ’s face where the light of beauti- 
ful promise lay. The darkness into 
which he stared had become the background for 
a succession of pictures, painted with the cruel 
vividness of painful memories. 

It was a night in the Philippines-black, stifling. 
The unwholesome heat had racked and tortured 
men’s nerves for days, until they gave way under 
the strain. No breeze brought relief to those who 
lay beneath the tents of the invading army. The 
air was heavy with foul odors. 

Two men in uniform walked up a path from the 
river; their shoes were covered with dust to the 
ankles, their faces were white with fatigue and 
pity for the sights they had been witnessing. 
They had been inspecting the shacks where the 
men were quartered, down by the river. Sick- 
ness had broken out among them. Many were 
raving with fever and crying out with pain, or 
dying silently in corners. An epidemic was 
plainly well begun. 

“What are you going to tell the General,” 
questioned one. 


50 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


51 


“Tell him the truth!” exclaimed the other with 
the hot, generous indignation of youth. “Idl 
tell him that the roofs leak; the floors are covered 
with fllth; the whole field where the encampment 
lies is stagnant and foul, little better than a swamp. 
It’s murder to bring young fellows out here from 
the States and quarter them this way! We’ll 
lose half the regiment before autumn. ” 

“Tell all that to Ringwood!” said the other, 
aghast. “You must be anxious for trouble. 
He’ll court-martial you.” 

“I’ll only be sharing the fate of a good many 
better men,” he had retorted. “Since they sent 
Ringwood here to take command the place has 
been hell. I’ve endured seven months of it now. 
I ’ve seen officers stripped of their shoulder straps 
for nothing — robbed of their friends and their repu- 
tation because he had some grievance against 
them. I’ve seen the men die of poor food, bad 
water, overcrowding. I’ve pandered, excused, 
and temporized, like the rest of them. And now 
we’re starting the same rotten business all over 
again. What right had he to let that new regi- 
ment in here.^ He’s incompetent, I tell you; in- 
competent and a bully. ” 

“For God’s sake, hush, Charley!” warned his 
companion. 

Out from among the trees stepped a man, 
lowering, huge of girth, hairy fisted. His face 
was purple with heat and much wine, and mottled 


52 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


with fierce anger. He had overheard the young 
lieutenant’s words, that was evident. For a 
moment he glared at him, speechless with rage. 
Then came a torrent of abuse, of threats, of 
malicious innuendoes, which drew sneering laughter 
from those creatures of his who accompanied 
him. The noise and the growing excitement 
brought other officers from their quarters, and 
to them the raging general, grown more purple 
still, repeated the story with gross exaggerations. 

Strong felt once more the intolerable, stifling 
heat of that moment when he stood facing the 
ring of curious or accusing faces. Goaded beyond 
endurance, realizing that this man could and 
would ruin him, he had lifted his voice with the 
boldness of despair and said over again, word for 
word, the charges his indignation had drawn from 
him. Even the bravest held their breath, look- 
ing at the general’s face, but no one was quite 
prepared for what came next. For, suddenly, 
without warning, in the midst of his words, the 
man leaped at him, purple, foaming, and struck 
him across the face. What followed was purely 
instinctive — the start of amazement; the terrible, 
surging anger that turned everything red before 
Strong’s eyes; the fierce return blow that hit so 
straight and true; then, the heavy fall, the inert 
body, the stream of blood issuing from purple 
lips. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


53 


Great beads stood out on Strong’s forehead in 
spite of the increasing sting of the mountain air, 
drawn from secret canyons where the snow still 
lay hidden. A groan broke from his lips. “Blood 
guiltiness,” he said to his soul, and it was the 
burden of an old and very bitter cry. 

:ic * 9ic * 

Now as he stood there, staring into the dark, 
he felt the damp, black walls of the prison close 
about him, and knew once more the wild terror of 
the caged thing. Fear of the trap — it is one of 
the keenest, most primitive instincts. It had 
torn and harried him into the semblance of a ghost, 
those first weeks and months of his penance. The 
pounding of the blood in his veins became the 
tread of the guard past his door. Once more he 
heard himself called sharply, not by name, as a 
man among his fellows, but by number. He was 
a criminal, a convict. He worked at labor beyond 
his strength under the eye of the brutal guards. 
All night he watched, hour by hour, for the com- 
ing of light; all day he longed for the night to hide 
him from the sight and touch of men. Foul words 
rang in his ears, and strange, animal-like cries. 
The tread of heavy feet was ever behind him, and 
the leer or scowl of sodden faces met his eyes. 
Once more he seemed cut off from every good 
thing, tainted in soul and body, as the horrible, 
degrading pictures of those first weeks and months 
in prison passed before him, and his face grew 


54 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


drawn and gray. The bitter cry, “unclean,” 
rang in his soul with all the sharpness of his first 
despair. 

^ ^ ^ 

The white starlight fell softly over the cliffs 
and silvered them to an unearthly radiance. The 
freshening breeze touched his forehead with gentle 
fingers. The pictures before his eyes changed, 
and peace, like a familiar presence, began to steal 
into his heart. He saw himself bending over the 
bench in the prison workshop with a growing 
pleasure in work well done , the first thrill of new- 
born manhood. He remembered how there had 
followed a revulsion against his despair; a con- 
viction that the past need never be lived again, 
nor the present forever clouded by its shadow. 
The inner forces of his nature, the seed of a good 
inheritance, nourished by years of discipline and 
purified by suffering, began to assert themselves. 
His life was still before him. If twenty years of 
it must be spent in the loathsome shadow of those 
gray walls, those years were not too long to learn 
the patience, the self control, for lack of which he 
had come there. He had begun all wrong, he was 
terribly handicapped, but the race was still before 
him. Hope, like a spring of pure water, began to 
bubble up within his soul. He began to live his 
life quietly, persistently apart from his surround- 
ings. He filled his hours with work and study; 
he shut despair and remorse from his thoughts. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


55 


and opened them eagerly to everything good and 
pure and happy. Like a thirsting man in the 
desert, he drank in every suggestion of hope, and 
as if it had been his natural sustenance, he revived; 
he gathered strength; he came slowly into his own 
again. He had entered upon his period of punish- 
ment an impulsive boy. He came out into the 
world of free activity a brilliant, resourceful, self- 
controlled man. Out of the great tragedy and 
wreck of his life, he had wrested his manhood; 
built it up carefully, patiently, piece by piece, with 
purifying agony. 

He had come out humble, eager, ready to serve, 
and the world would have none of him. This was 
the truth he had been compelled to face in the 
months and years that followed. A small inherited 
fortune had made him independent of employ- 
ment or favor. Otherwise, in the early days of 
his freedom, he might have starved. The new- 
born purpose of his life, to undo his wrong to 
society by whole-hearted service, met with misun- 
derstanding and ridicule. The shadow of the 
gray prison walls, which he had thought forever 
behind him, lay over him more heavily out here 
in the free sunlight. Everybody knew his story; 
everywhere he was met with coldness or shrink- 
ing; or worse, the morbid curiosity with which 
men regard the monstrous or horrible. It was 
well for him in these years that he had learned 
patience, that he had made hope the blessed sus- 


56 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


tenance of his soul, for he was in more danger than 
before. During many months his inclination led 
him to unfrequented spots, — solitary places. It 
was then that he learned to love and understand 
the life of forest and plain, the great, wholesome 
world of out-of-doors. He had wandered exten- 
sively, hunting, trapping, avoiding for weeks at a 
time the haunts of men. Chance had led him 
among those children of the open, the Indians, 
and in return for their knowledge of woodcraft 
he had taught them many things. Among the 
Piutes, in particular, he was hailed as a friend 
whose coming was welcomed, whose departure 
regretted. Here at last he found comfort for a 
sore heart, and courage to try once more to re- 
gain his birthright. 

So he had returned to the world of tall build- 
ings and crowded streets, where the wind and 
tempest of the open were replaced by the passions 
of men. He began a slow, patient struggle against 
the ignorance, the prejudice, the cruel egotism 
of his fellows. It was the charm and brilliancy 
of his mind, cultivated now by much reading and 
wide travel, that won him his first foothold. 
Men found him a delightful companion. They 
began to seek him out in the hotel lobby or the 
Pullman smoker. One or two business opportuni- 
ties came to him, and these, successfully handled, 
made his name somewhat of a power in backing 
new enterprises. But socially he had remained 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


57 


an outcast. Men never asked him to join their 
clubs, nor invited him to their houses. This 
barrier seemed impenetrable, he had found no 
charm as yet to lift it. His standing among Mrs. 
OnverelTs guests he understood perfectly. He 
was here in the guise of an entertainer, something 
rather more daring and unusual than other women 
had ventured upon, something to make her house 
party a notable affair. The others would admire, 
but they probably would not imitate. He under- 
stood this, yet he had come because of the girl 
with the light of promise in her face. 


Chapter VI 


T he vague surmise of those who had seen 
Strong ’s meeting with Ethel was correct. 
There had been a sequel to the adven- 
ture on the cliffs at Lucerne, Ethel’s 
mother had been very grateful and not very dis- 
creet. Days of companionship had followed each 
other in dreamlike succession, — rides and walks and 
excursions on the blue waters of the lovely lake. 
They knew nothing of Strong but his charm as a 
companion, and he had drifted for a little while 
out of the stormy current of bitter experiences 
into the fairest haven his restless heart had ever 
known. The soul of this girl had spoken to him 
through all the baffling contradictions of her 
nature. She led him by sweet, untrodden ways 
until the flowers bloomed in the dark and barren 
places and a passion such as only an intense na- 
ture could know was born in him and nourished 
to full growth. Life became once more a beauti- 
ful thing. Every hour was a revelation. 

Then one day an American officer, in the uni- 
form of his regiment, came to the hotel. The 
beautiful Miss Stanton and her mother were not 
unknown to him, and he made haste to renew the 
acquaintance. That night. Strong, hideously 
58 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


59 


awake again, had taken the Overland express for 
Constantinople to seek in the mysterious east 
some draught of forgetfulness. 

He had never found it. 

To the tragedy that clouded his life was added 
the hopelessly sweet dream of a girl, whose soul 
lay asleep beneath irridescent butterfly wings. 
He knew that to him had been given the magic 
touch to waken it. He could have called to life 
the woman who looked with such wistful sweet- 
ness at moments from her eyes. He could have 
taught her how to fulfil the high destiny that 
nature had so plainly marked her for. 

The very circumstances of his life had fitted him 
to see further, to understand better than another. 
Yet they were separated as widely as the north 
pole from the south. Any spendthrift foreign 
duke or adventurer could approach her, and lin- 
ger beside her, even make his offer for her hand. 
But for Strong the social barrier could not be 
crossed. The men regarded his presence in their 
houses as an effrontery. They would guard their 
women from him as from a beast of the forest. 

So when the house door opened to let Forrest out 
onto the veranda, Strong stood silent with bent 
head, like a man convicted. He had no doubt 
that Forrest had come with a purpose; neither 
did he doubt what the purpose was, for he felt 
sure that emotion such as his must have been 
written in his face. But the strength of all pas- 


60 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


sions and despairs, met and overcome, is ours to 
use in other evil moments. And Strong waited 
quietly. The girl whom he had chosen to love be- 
longed to one of the most carefully guarded of 
the social castes. Also the way in which she 
had looked into the eyes of this other man left 
Strong in no doubt of the relations be ween them. 
The glowing point of light, which was Forrest’s 
cigar, dulled and went out before the words came 
for which the other waited. 

“That you. Strong?” 

“Yes.” 

“I thought I saw you come out.” 

Strong’s hand clenched itself on the railing. 
The smooth, well modulated voice seemed to call 
up for a moment a complete picture of the suave, 
successful man who had spoken. He had a fierce 
desire to seize him by the throat and choke the 
inevitable words out of him, that he might go the 
sooner and leave the solitude and quiet of the 
night unbroken. 

The other’s silence disconcerted Forrest a little. 
He looked about uncertainly and his glance noted 
the unusual brilliancy of the stars. 

“Fine night,” he said. 

“Yes.” 

“These mountains are great. I’d be sorry to 
leave tomorrow if I didn’t hope to put through a 
big deal by going. ” 

“You are going tomorrow?” 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


61 


“Yes.” He laughed with a slight touch of 
nervousness. He was not finding it wholly easy 
to say what he intended to a man who would give 
him no help. “I confess that I am anixous to 
get there, too. Certain circumstances have com- 
bined and the success of this deal is pretty nearly 
make or break with me.” 

“Yes?” 

He went on more fluently now, taking the 
plunge. “You see the sweetest girl in the world 
is waiting for me to build her a home. ” 

“You mean Miss Stanton?” 

“Yes.” Forrest was at ease now. Strong’s 
tone had been devoid of any trace of feeling. 
Evidently he meant to take it well. “There’s 
been an understanding between us for a long time. 
It seems rather maudlin for me to be pouring this 
out to you,” he went on, laughing again. “But 
I ’m going on the principle that all the world loves 
a lover.” 

“Of course.” 

Forrest paused a moment to re-light his cigar. 
In the silence a coyote barked shrilly from the 
cliffs. 

“Our fathers arranged the match when we were 
•children,” he went on again. “It’s just a ques- 
tion now of pulling a few things through before 
I can give her the establishment she ought to 
have. Then I’m going to stop this infernal rush 
and settle down to enjoy life. ” He struck another 


62 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


match and held it to his cigar with a hand that 
trembled. “Look at that!” he said in disgust. 
“A hand that trembles like an old man ’s before 
you’re thirty -five! Yes, I’m going to stop — 
when I’ve made my million.” His big laugh 
rang out again. 

“One million will only teach you how to spend 
others,” said Strong with a restless movement 
that did not escape Forrest’s notice. Now that 
he had said what he wished, he was not anxious to 
linger. The atmosphere of tragedy was never to 
Forrest’s liking, and although the man beside him 
was very quiet, Forrest felt sure that he suffered. 
So with the unconscious swagger of the conquer- 
ing male he stretched his arms above his head 
and sauntered toward the house. 

“Well, I’m for bed. I hope I’ve not bored 
you too much with my affairs. ” 

Strong felt the hot blood pound at his temples. 

“Good night,” he said briefly. 

“B-r-r, the nights are cold at this altitude. Or 
is it cold.^ There’s something queer about the 
atmosphere. Do you notice it?” 

“There’s some electrical disturbance.” 

“I suppose the cold means little to you. I 
remember your telling me that you have spent 
months out of doors among the Indians. ” 

“I have slept out many times above the snow 
level.” 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“Well, I must confess I like warmth and com- 
fort. I ’ll take my strenuous life in a steam-heated 
oflfice, with a telephone and an office boy. ” 

“Every one to his liking.” 

And then, at last, the door closed and Strong was 
alone. 

He * 4: * * 

After awhile he was aware of a soft touch on 
his hand that was like a caress. He started and 
raised a haggard face. The dog, Rex, stood be- 
side him, wagging his tail in agitated fashion. 
It was the touch of his tongue that had aroused 
Strong. 

He put his hand on the dog’s head. All ani- 
mals were friendly with him, and the mute caress 
had brought him a sense of comfort. But Rex 
was uneasy. He ran from Strong’s side to the 
veranda rail. The hair on his back rose; he ut- 
tered a low growl, yet his plumy tail waved as if 
in greeting. 

“What’s wrong, boy?” questioned Strong. 
The dog started toward him, but turned back 
again with a whine. 

Interested in spite of himself. Strong rose from 
his chair and walked to the rail. Then he leaned 
over and looked down at the shrubbery beneath. 
A low call came from out the shadow. 

“Is it you, chief?” asked a voice in the Piute 
language. 


64 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“Who is there?” he demanded in the same 
tongue. 

“O chief—” 

“Come up here. Show yourself. Who is it 
that hides in the dark?” 

A figure detached itself from the shadows and 
crept haltingly up the steps. 

“You, Annunciata!” 

“Chief, forgive.” 

“You followed me here?” 

“O chief—” 

“Have I not told you many times?” 

“But, chief, there is great need. Do you com- 
mand me, your foster-mother, to sit by the camp- 
fire, idle, while danger threatens?” 

The old woman’s affection dated from the win- 
ter he had spent among the Piutes and a severe 
illness through which she had nursed him. He 
had called her, half in jest, his foster-mother. 
She had taken the name seriously, and her dog- 
like devotion had become a thing that knew no 
bounds of place or time. His face softened as he 
looked down at her. 

“Danger? So you said last month at San Jose, 
and in October when I hunted among the 
marshes. ” 

“Was it not true each time?” 

He was silent a moment; a smile, sad and full 
of tenderness, crossed his face. 

“Yes,” he said. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


65 


She was crouching on the floor at his feet. Now 
she raised herself to clasp his knees. 

“The chief’s life is of much, much worth.” 

“I wish that those were true words, Annun- 
ciata. ” 

“Has not the chief taught my people, and helped 
them when the winter was bad.^” 

“And learned from them also. What is it you 
would tell me.f^” 

She crept closer. 

“I am foster-mother of the chief. Shall I not 
warn him? It came on the wind. There is dan- 
ger. I feel it here, and here.” She placed her 
hand on her head, then on her breast. 

“ I do not fear, Annunciata. ” 

“You are not, then, as wise as the birds and the 
animals. Listen. ” 

They stood in silence for a moment, straining 
their ears. Then he heard what he had been too 
absorbed to notice before. The forest was no 
longer wrapped in mysterious silence, but full of 
uneasy rustlings. It seemed to him he could hear 
the pad of soft feet and the breathing of living 
creatures. From the stable a sharp neigh echoed, 
and the beating of hoofs against the floor. 

“Do you hear?” asked the woman. 

“Yes,” said Strong. He felt a quick tension 
of the nerves. Everything seemed to be waiting, 
uneasily, with dread. 


66 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“What is it they expect?” he asked. His 
nature, accustomed now for years to look beyond 
accepted standards, was simpler, more impres- 
sionable than that of happier men. 

“The danger. They feel it. Come with me 
to my people. Perhaps it will pass us by. ” 

Her hand, catching at his coat, strove to draw 
him, but he stood still, listening. He saw in fancy 
a girl ’s face. 

“Come, chief.” 

He turned to her. 

“Go back, Annunciata, to your people. I will 
be careful. I will remember. There is work I 
must do here. ” 

“But, chief — ” 

“Go. The great Father will care for us.” 

“From Him came the warning.” 

“From Him will come the escape. Go.” 

He watched her shuffle unwillingly down the 
steps and disappear among the heavy shadows. 
The solenrn beauty of his last words had brought 
him unconsciously a sense of solace. The restless 
suffering of the earlier hours was past. If there 
was danger, then there was work to be done, and 
work brought peace. Also the human, anxious 
love of the Piute woman had comforted him. 

He dropped into one of the deep porch chairs, 
and his tired body relaxed against the cushions. 
His thoughts lost their bitterness. He lighted 
a cigar and began to muse on the girl whose eyes 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


67 


seemed to look at him through the drifting smoke. 
He had never dreamed of winning her; he had 
known that some day she would marry. The 
renunciation was far easier than if it had come to 
him earlier. Despair passed gradually into the 
old sense of loneliness, and that faded into dreamy 
quiet. The shining of her eyes was confused now 
with the brilliant light of the stars. Gratefully 
he felt sleep steal over his brain. Once a brief 
memory of the Indian woman’s warning roused 
him to momentary watchfulness, then his limbs 
relaxed, his breathing became regular and deep. 
With the dog curled at his feet, he slept. 


Chapter VII 


I T was morning, the morning of the eighteenth 
of April, the morning of the earthquake. A 
little group of people stood huddled together 
in the open meadow and looked at each other 
with such faces as the dead might have worn. 
Indeed, they were as the newly dead. The world 
they looked on in the pale light of this day was 
separated from the world they had known hither- 
to by a cycle of unbelievable horror. 

Behind them the dust still rose in a cloud from 
the heap of boards and plaster that had been the 
bungalow. They had turned their faces away 
from it, for the ruins were also a sepulchre. From 
the servants’ quarters no one had escaped. 

The great earthquake that shook San Francisco 
to its foundations had attained among the 
canyons of the Sierras a terrible violence. The 
silence that heralds the miracle of dawn had been 
rent by a thousand thunders. There had followed 
a grinding sound, an upheaval of the solid 
earth like the surges of a mighty sea. Mingled 
with the thunder came sharp noises; the breaking 
and rending of great boulders, the crash and fall 
of trees. The Sierras had shuddered and trembled 
with terrible throes. The house had been lifted 
68 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


69 


from its foundation and hurled in upon itself, a 
heap of wreckage. The stable was level with the 
ground. 

If the bungalow had been a two-story building, 
with the sleeping rooms above, no one could have 
escaped. As it was, the windows opened directly 
upon the porch or the ground, and the superior 
resistance of the massive stone pillars and chim- 
neys had saved that part of the house from de- 
struction. Breathless, appalled, doubtful if the 
life was still in them, they had crawled out through 
the broken casements. Now they stood there, 
the five who had made up Mrs. Onverell’s house 
party. The motion of the earth had long since 
ceased. Confidence, on tip-toe for ready flight, 
was beginning to return to them. The solid 
ground beneath their feet seemed once more a 
thing to trust in. They began to look around, 
curious over the extent of the damage; they were 
even elated, suddenly, as people will be over a great 
experience. 

Mrs. Onverell was the first to speak, in a curi- 
ous, high-pitched voice. 

“Are you quite sure about the servants, Jim?’” 

“Quite, sweetheart. Strong and I crawled 
through the wreckage and saw. ” 

“Oh—” she cried— “Oh— ” 

The cry grew to a shriek, she struggled and 
fought for breath. Ethel, wide-eyed and speech- 
less, had been standing with her arms about her. 


70 


THE DAWN MEADOW^ 


The older woman had turned to her involun- 
tarily. 

“Water, Jim!” she said, laying the hysterical 
woman down upon the meadow grass. Onverell 
and Forrest, a few feet away, had been staring at 
the ruined house like men hypnotized. Now they 
turned at Ethel’s summons. 

“Bring water,” she repeated. 

Forrest heard her, uncomprehending. His low- 
er jaw was trembling like a child’s. The sight of 
Mrs. Onverell ’s collapse affected his overwrought 
nerves profoundly. Onverell threw himself on the 
ground beside his wife and took her hand in his, 
calling her name over and over. 

It was Strong who heard and answered Ethel’s 
plea. He stooped and caught up a piece of loose 
bark. Rolling it in his hands into a rude cup he 
ran to the spring which foamed over the rocks 
near by. Its force was unchecked by the recent 
upheaval. Indeed, Strong noted that it was run- 
ning with far greater freedom than on the pre- 
vious day, carrying along stones and sand with 
it, as though some barrier higher up had given 
way. Already it had overflowed its shallow banks, 
and was wandering through the meadow grass. 
He dipped his bark cup into the water and re- 
turned to Ethel. 

She dashed the water into Mrs. Onverell’s face, 
who caught her breath and moaned. Then Ethel 
wet her handkerchief and bathed Mrs. Onverell’s 
forehead. Her moaning gradually ceased. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


71 


After a few moments Ethel rose to her feet. 

“You can take care of her now, Jim,” she said. 
“ I think she will be all right. Just rub her hands 
and forehead. ” 

Strong looked at her anxiously. She was white 
as marble. 

“Feeling all right he questioned. 

She straightened up and smiled at him with a 
determined effort. 

“Of course I’m all right. A little earthquake 
that kills off a few people is nothing to a San 
Franciscan. It takes something worth while to 
shake my nerves.” Then, bending toward him 
she murmured so that he alone could hear . 
“Please, I want to deserve a little of what you 
said last night. Help me. ” 

He answered her with a sudden lighting up of his 
face. But she swayed as she looked up at him, 
and he put his arm quickly about her shoulders 
to steady her, so that when her eyes, which had 
darkened for a moment, saw clearly again, she 
was still standing on her feet. 

“It was true,” he said steadily, “every word 
was true.” 

She caught at his arm for a moment, then let 
it go and smiled again. Strength seemed to come 
to her from his words and look. She walked over 
to a knoll and sat down. 

“And now,” said Strong cheerfully, decisively, 
“the next thing is to have a fire and something 
hot to eat. ** 


72 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


The comforting, commonplace suggestion acted 
upon their dazed minds like a tonic. The return 
to everyday living, the little familiar incidents 
that make up the customary routine, seemed to 
take away some of the terrifying impressions of 
the past few hours and to replace them with sane 
and normal ideas. Their pale faces, seeming 
ghostly in the uncertain light of a partially ob- 
scured sun, lost their wan look; all were lifted for 
a little above the sense of an overwhelming dis- 
aster. 

“We haven’t any coffee,” said Forrest. 

“Nor any provisions,” murmured Mrs. On- 
verell, “unless — ” she looked toward the house 
with a shudder. 

“Nor anything to boil water in,” added Ethel. 

Strong was on his hands and knees collecting 
twigs, dead leaves, and pieces of bark. She rose 
at once to help him, and the relief of action brought 
a faint color to her face. 

“Bob,” she called, “bring some of those dead 
branches from the foot of the cliff. ” 

Forrest moved forward slowly, his eyes dull. 

“We have no coffee,” he repeated. 

“Bring the wood anyway.” 

She could not have said why she had such faith 
in Strong’s ability to provide all that was need- 
ful. Perhaps because his manner was that of one 
who found the situation neither unexpected nor 
overwhelming. His look had the steadiness of a 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


73 


man who has met and mastered fortune in many 
guises and knew resources of patience and inven- 
tion within himself. Now he had found a large, 
flat rock with a ledge that jutted out to protect 
it from the wind, forming a sort of ingle-nook. 
Hither he carried his leaves and bark. 

“Come,” he called. “Sit down by this rock. 
In five minutes we shall have a fire to warm our- 
selves. In half an hour we shall have breakfast. ” 

He still wore the dress suit of the evening be- 
fore, for his sleep had been heavy and his awaken- 
ing had come with the shock that wrecked the 
house. He drew from his pocket a match holder 
and kindled the leaves. The fire communicated 
itself quickly to the twigs, which crackled with a 
cheerful sound. 

“Hurry up with that wood,” he called to For- 
rest. 

Onverell started to his feet. 

“Come and get warm, Mayme,” he said. 
“Fll go and help Bob, if you don ’t mind my leaving 
you.” He lifted her in his arms and carried her 
over to the sheltered ledge. “There were a lot of 
cushions on the porch,” he continued, noting the 
unevenness of the rocky surface. “I’d better 
see — ” He turned toward the house, but she 
caught his arm. 

“No, Jim,” she exclaimed, “no, no.” 

Her face grew white again. Onverell, looking 
up, caught a negative sign from Ethel. 


74 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“Go and bring the wood,” she said. “Mrs. 
Onverell and I are going to watch Mr. Strong get 
the breakfast. We are consumed with curiosity 
about it. Look, Mrs. Onverell, see what he is 
doing. ” 

Strong had gone over to the southern face of the 
cliff. Here a landslide of some dimensions had 
occurred. Rocks, earth and debris were scattered 
over a considerable area. Underneath one of 
these rocks his eye had caught a glimpse of blood- 
stained fur. He lifted the rock and drew out a 
rabbit, evidently caught in the landslide and 
hurled to its death. A little deft work by 
practiced fingers had the rabbit skinned, cleaned, 
and ready to be cooked. Then he stooped once 
more and dug out from among the meadow 
grass certain roots and herbs. These he carried 
to Mrs. Onverell and Ethel. 

“Wash and scrape these,” he said, “and keep 
the fire hot. We ’ll soon be ready. ” 

A large stone lay just below the surface of the 
water, hollowed out in the centre by the action of 
a little cascade which fell over a boulder at this 
point. Strong discarded his coat and vest and, 
rolling up his shirt sleeves, tugged and wrenched 
the rock loose from its bed. 

“What is that for?” asked Ethel’s voice near 
him. She knelt on the bank of the brook, wash- 
ing the herbs and roots. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


75 


“That’s our kettle,” he said, depositing it be- 
side her. “See how the water has hollowed it 
out like a bowl. And on this side it has a thin, 
flat projection, the best thing in the world to 
broil meat on. There’s a whole kitchen range 
ready for our use. ” 

“How did you think of it.^^” she asked, with an 
interest in her eyes that he welcomed gladly. 

“I’ve spent months at a time in the woods,” 
he replied, drawing a knife from his pocket and 
beginning to cut the rabbit meat into small pieces. 
“Part of the time I was among the Indians, who 
are masters in the art of using whatever is at their 
hand. There is always a stone like this when it’s 
needed, or something equally good. ” 

“You love the out-of-doors, don’t you.^” 

He raised his head and looked gravely into her 
eyes. 

“As a man who has known what it was to be 
confined within stone walls, ” he said, simply. 

Her glance fell before his; a sudden, unaccount- 
able color flooded her cheeks, but she was glad he 
had spoken. It put their friendship on a firm 
footing with nothing to conceal or overlook. 
Then she caught herself up with a start — friend- 
ship. Had she indeed gone so far in her thoughts 
with this man of lost reputation, whom she had 
seen but twice Confused, wondering, she at- 
tempted no answer, and he went on quietly, 
noting her look. 


76 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“You, too, love the woods and mountains 
surely, or you would not leave Grand Opera in 
mid season to come up here?” 

“Yes, I love the freedom, the beauty. I would 
love it very much if something in me wasn’t 
afraid. ” 

“Why should you be afraid among the trees 
and stars — you, who lie down contentedly every 
night in the treacherous heart of a great city?” 

“It’s a relic of the primitive, I suppose, that 
fear of the spirits that hide in winds and caves.” 

“It’s generally the talk of a bad conscience. 
See, the rabbit is ready to cook, so is the seasoning. 
There are joys as well as terrors in the open. 
This stew is going to be one of them. ” 

He filled the hollow stone with water, placed 
in the water the meat and herbs, and carried the 
whole over to the fire. Onverell and Forrest had 
returned with a generous supply of driftwood, 
and they built a royal blaze beneath the impro- 
vised kettle. Soon the stew was bubbling cheer- 
fully, and they sat about the fire, warming their 
chilled bodies and making spoons and little cups 
out of bark under Strong’s direction. When the 
broth was done they filled these and ate with 
some show of appetite. 

The broth had a peculiar, aromatic flavor not 
unpleasant, and when they had eaten a little it 
put heart into them. They began to talk, dis- 
cussing the earthquake and its phenomena. Only 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


77 


Strong had grown suddenly silent and his gaze 
rested on the narrow pass that Onverell had 
blasted out to give entrance to the meadow. His 
face was quiet, expressionless, but Ethel, glancing 
at him, got once more, as on the previous night, 
the impression that every nerve was tense. She 
wondered, with a sinking of the heart, what was 
in his mind, and feared to question him. 

It was when they were about half way through 
with their meal and wholly absorbed, that a voice 
behind them said plaintively. ‘T reckon that 
there something that smells so durn good is all 
et up. It’s just my luck to get here in time to 
wash the dishes. ” 

The men sprang to their feet, and the women 
turned pale, for to their knowledge they were the 
only living people in the meadow. 

“Jose!” exclaimed Onverell. 

“Oh, Jose, are you alive? ” gasped Mrs. Onverell, 
half hysterical again, between dismay and mirth 
at his appearance, “how you frightened us!” 

“We thought — ” began Onverell. 

“You thought I wuz dead, I bet. You don’t 
know me. Why, this ain’t nothin’. Onct when 
I wuz in the Panhandle we had a blizzard that 
blew the crust right off the earth and let it loose 
around in the atmosphere. Yes, ma’am, that 
wuz a time! Not a thing left above ground far 
ez you could see.” 


78 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“But the stables are a heap of ruins,” said On- 
verell, “and the horses and the cow were killed — ” 

“Well, I reckon I ’da been a heap o’ ruins, too, 
if I ’d stayed there. But them there bosses a play- 
in ’ Sally Water with their hoofs on the floor made 
me plum nervous. Tf this keeps up,’ sez I, to my- 
self, T ’ll take my best clothes and go away.’ So 
pretty soon I went outside and laid down in the 
grass to think. And the next thing I knew I 
wuz beginning to feel able to sit up and take nour- 
ishment. ” 

“Do you mean that you were unconscious all 
that time.?” demanded Onverell. 

“Well, something like that,” answered Jose 
sadly, his habitual gloom unrelieved by so much 
as a twinkle. “You see one of those mountains 
fell on me and — ” 

In spite of anxiety and suffering they burst 
into a unanimous peal of laughter that drowned 
his words. He looked at them sorrowfully. “In 
that case, ” he remarked, “I might as well eat some 
soup. ” 

They supplied him with a cup of the stew. 
Then, while he ate, their talk returned to the 
subject now uppermost in the minds of all, — how 
to get back to the city with the least delay and 
inconvenience. 

“The thing to do flrst,” said Onverell, “is to 
devise some way of carrying the ladies down over 
the trail. Perhaps we might rig up some sort of 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


79 


a litter. What do you say, Strong Even in 
the short time since the earthquake had passed 
it seemed to have become a habit to appeal to 
this man on every point of moment. But he did 
not answer now; his gaze was on the narrow pass 
where they had found their entrance to the mead- 
ow, and which must also give them exit. 

“That’s the idea,” answered Forrest, eagerly, 
in his place. “There are plenty of boards at the 
house, and the porch awnings would give us 
canvas. There are four of us to carry it. Let’s 
get to work. The sooner we start away from 
here the better. We don’t want to stay another 
night. ” 

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Mrs. Onverell and Ethel 
at once. 

“What do you say, Strong.^^” appealed Onverell 
again. 

Strong rose slowly to his feet and turned on his 
questioner a glance in which were doubt and 
hesitation. 

“Is there any other way out of here than the 
one by which we came in yesterday?” he said. 

“No,” said Onverell, “that’s the only one 
— why?” 

He stopped, his gaze followed Strong’s. His 
face grew ashen. 

“God!” he said. 

“That way looks to be blocked,” said Strong.. 
“The boulder has fallen.” 


80 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


There was a general terrified exclamation, then 
a dismayed silence, broken by Mrs. Onvereirs 
voice, small and high pitched. 

“Do you really mean, Jim, that there is no 
other way out of here?” 

“Of course I don’t,” he declared promptly, 
gathering himself together with a splendid effort. 
“I don’t know anything about it. There are 
probably a dozen other ways.” 

“You’re right,” said Strong, “and the next 
thing for us to do is to find one of them!” 


Chapter VIII 


T he boulder had fallen into the narrow 
opening, closing it completely. Upon 
the top of the boulder one of the cliff 
walls had disintegrated into a mass of 
rocks, uprooted trees and loose earth, forming what 
seemed an impassable barrier two hundred and 
fifty or three hundred feet in height. Above it 
on every side towered the sheer walls of the cliff, 
unbroken for a thousand feet or more. They were 
as completely shut in as miners at the bottom 
of a collapsed shaft, only with this blessed dif- 
ference, that the sheer walls of their prison were 
roofed with the open sky. 

The sides of the cliff were formed mostly of 
loose shale that slipped away from beneath the 
feet of those who tried to climb, endangering life 
and limb. Moreover they bulged slightly forward 
from the perpendicular, making the climber’s 
task practically impossible. All day Strong, Jose, 
and Onverell had patiently examined these cliffs 
for any faint suggestion of a trail. At imminent 
risk of falling. Strong had won a way far enough 
up over the boulder to discover an appalling 
fact. The disintegration of the cliff had continued 
far out beyond the meadow entrance. The loose 
81 


8 ^ 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


sandstone formation showed jagged rents for a 
hundred feet or more, and the narrow trail that 
had hung along its face was entirely obliterated. 
There was no possibility of returning the way they 
had come. Their only chance of escape lay in 
scaling the cliff to the forest above. 

Now the sun was going down into a strange, 
gray cloud that rose ever more darkly from the 
south. Bajffled and very weary, they sat by the 
fire and rested. They did not, as yet, acknowl- 
edge defeat. Onverell, in particular, was loud in 
his declarations that another hour of day would 
have shown them something worth while. 

“As soon as it is light in the morning,” he said, 
“we’ll try several of those places again. We’ll 
be fresh, then, and it won’t take us any time to 
find a way out. ” 

Forrest had given out early in the day. His 
whole being was concentrated on the feverish 
hope of escape, yet the physical exertion of climb- 
ing left him panting and exhausted. Now, at 
Onverell ’s words, he raised his head eagerly. 

“We’ll get out of here early in the morning,” 
he declared. 

Strong, starting to replenish the fire, found 
only a piece or two of their driftwood pile, and 
turned to the weary group with decision. 

“ We must get more wood at once for the night, ” 
he said. “The fire must not be allowed to go out. ” 

Strong, without question, had taken control of 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


83 


the situation. He alone was undismayed by the 
conditions they were facing. Long experience of 
roughing it in many places had taught him how 
easily the real needs of human life may be met. 
Even the labor demanded is healthful and induces 
the sweetest sleep that man ever knows. The 
others, long accustomed to luxury and dazed by 
the repeated shocks of the last twenty-four hours, 
were lost in uncertainty. Without realizing it 
they were grateful for the voice of authority, 
which relieved them of mental effort. 

The three men rose at his words and made their 
way to the base of the cliff, where driftwood lay 
plentifully scattered, washed down by the winter 
storms. Jose hitched himself along with many 
groans, to which the others paid no heed, unless 
to regret that the accepted creed of their class 
forbade them to indulge in the same method of 
relief. 

Strong, himself, after a quick look at the women, 
turned his steps in the direction of the ruined 
bungalow and stable. In the pantries and store- 
room there must have been provisions. Some 
might have escaped destruction, and the need of 
them was imperative. In the stable there had 
been a young Jersey. She had been killed at 
once by a falling beam. Here was meat for many 
days. So, in the dusk of this strange, gray evening 
he came to the heap of fallen timbers and stood con- 
templating it. 


84 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


His face was white. Ever since the great 
central tragedy of his life, the sight of a dead man 
always brought back to him the moment when the 
red mist cleared from before his eyes and he had 
looked on the work of his hands. Although the 
evening was cold, the drops stood on his forehead 
as he bent to lift a broken beam. 

It took a few minutes of sharp effort to free the 
beam, whose splintered edges were caught under 
the debris. When he stood erect again he started, 
for some one was beside him, some one with 
tumbled hair and appealing eyes, her long, gray 
evening cloak showing just a glimpse of the blue 
silk kimono underneath. 

“I’m not a ghost,” she said, smiling faintly. 

“You shouldn’t have come here,” he replied, 
almost sternly. 

“Don’t be horrid and bear-like. I’m sure there 
are enough real ones up there among those trees. 
That’s why I didn’t want to stay alone. Besides, 
I couldn ’t wait any longer to know what you were 
doing. ” 

“It was your far away ancestor who first tasted 
the apple, ” he reminded her, gravely. 

“It was, and I am proud to claim her. She 
was a progressive and courageous individual. 
As her lineal descendent I am here, in terror of 
my life, to discover the mystery that lurks behind 
your actions. ” 

He looked at her with amusement in his eyes. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


85 


“I’m hunting for provisions,” he answered her 
at last. “There are probably plenty buried under 
here, and we need them. ” 

“Anything would do for tonight if we are to 
get away in the morning,” she said, her eyes on 
his face. 

“Think of getting through two mornings with- 
out coffee,” he replied, readily. “Besides, I’m 
anxious to show you what a master I am in the 
art of making it over a camp-fire. ” 

“Mr. Strong — ” she interrupted. 

He looked at her. Her face was determined, 
and he knew that neither his words nor manner 
had deceived her. 

“Well?” he replied slowly. 

“You don’t believe that we are going to get 
away from here in the morning, do you?” 

He hesitated. 

“The truth, please,” she begged. “Haven’t 
I deserved it?” 

“You have,” he said, conquered at once. 

“Well, then?” 

“We certainly have found no way out yet, but 
we have spent only a few hours. ” 

“Mr. Strong, that isn’t fair?” 

“You’re right,” he answered slowly, “and you 
are brave, braver than any woman I have known. ” 

A little color crept into her face; her eyes glowed 
softly at his words, but she did not remove her 
gaze from him. 


86 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“Frankly,” he went on, “I’m afraid that the 
formation of the cliffs makes our way out difficult. 
It would probably be easier for others to get at 
us from the outside. We may have to wait for 
that.” 

“Thank you,” she said. “That was what 
your face told me. ” 

“But that is only my opinion, ” he added hastily. 
“Don’t give it more weight than it deserves. ” 

“You know. Of us all you are the only one 
who knows.” 

“What makes you think so?” 

“Because you accepted the situation as a real 
one, and set yourself to study all the conditions. 
If there had been a solution you would have found 
it.” 

“You don’t know what your confidence means 
to me,” he said. “It’s the first time — ” He 
stopped abruptly, and the words she would have 
answered died on her lips. 

The gray dusk settled down upon them more 
heavily. 

“To stay here for hours longer, perhaps days!” 
she exclaimed, all at once, with a shuddering 
glance toward the ruins. A catch came into her 
breath, half way between a sob and a laugh. “I’m 
growing afraid again, ” she finished appealingly. 

He put his hand strongly under her arm and 
led her a little away from the house, toward the 
near cliffs. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


87 


“You have been so splendid today/’ he said. 
“This is only the clamor of tired nerves. Listen, 
soon you are going to rest. A little way up the 
brook tall brakes are growing with all the sweet- 
ness of the wind and the sun in their leaves. I 
will gather them and lay them on the grass like a 
mattress. You shall lie down there and sleep, and 
the stars will shine upon you all night. Doesn’t 
that sound good.^” 

“Yes,” she murmured, soothed and comforted 
in spite of herself. 

“There shall be nothing worse than stars and 
silence. We are four thousand feet nearer to 
heaven than we were down there. ” 

“Is heaven a locality?” she asked, smiling a 
little. 

“If not, we are still immeasurably nearer.” 

“I like that,” she said, “I like it very much.” 
She stopped as if considering his words again. 
The woman’s soul, stirring beneath the butterfly 
wings, looked out from her eyes with wistful 
sweetness. 

Rex, the collie, who had followed her from the 
camp-fire, suddenly stood erect and growled. 
The hair on his back bristled. 

“What is it, Rex?” she said, turning to look 
Then her tense nerves quivered sharply, she 
caught at Strong’s arm. “Oh, what — who is 
that!” she exclaimed. 

Two or three hundred feet away, in the strange, 
gray twilight, some one or some thing was slipping. 


8S 


THE DAWN JVIEADOW 


clinging, crawling along like a cat, over a heap of 
fallen rock at the base of the cliff. While they 
watched the figure it stopped, hesitated. From 
beneath its feet a little landslide of stones and 
sand came rattling away. It stood erect, revealing 
itself a woman with bent frame and coarse, dark 
hair that fell about her face. Strong took a step 
forward, and she raised her voice in a shrill cry. 

“It is Annunciata!’’ he said. “I might have 
known she would look for me. ” 

“Annunciata?” queried Ethel, still half terri^ 
fied. 

“A Piute Indian woman who once nursed me 
through a fever, and so feels for me a devotion I 
never earned. She calls herself my foster-moth- 
er.” Then he raised his voice. “Annunciata^ 
come here. ” 

The woman approached swiftly, yet with 
hesitation. It was evident that she feared his 
rebuke, yet a tremulous eagerness looked from 
her face. He spoke again. 

“You did not go away?” 

“Chief, you were here. Forgive, I bring a 
great message. ” 

“What message?” 

“All is gone. Great cities have fallen. San 
Francisco burns with fire. The world must begin 
again. ” 


Chapter IX 


A NNUNCIATA’S soul knew only two 
passions, love and fear. Sometimes one 
was in the ascendant. Then she was 
sad and brooding, the prey of all the 
superstitious fancies of her race. Again the 
other mastered her, and fear retreated before the 
stronger forces of love and service. Such a mood 
was upon her when Strong bade her, the night 
before the catastrophe, to return to her people. 
She was terribly afraid of the danger which her 
keener sensibilities told her was impending. She 
was still more afraid of the lightning of his rebuke, 
which she had known once or twice and seen 
administered to others. But her feet, turned 
unwillingly away from him, faltered and trod 
with hesitation. One thought was gradually 
taking possession of her, he was in danger and she 
was leaving him. 

He was in danger! As this conviction came 
vividly upon her, she halted abruptly, turning 
in the direction of the house. Then she paused 
again. He had commanded her to go, and fear 
counseled obedience. So she stood, hesitating, 
her simple soul torn in the conflict between its 
two masters, unable either to go or stay. But 
89 


90 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


the old Indian woman possessed some of the 
cunning of her race, and even when her indecision 
was at its height a way suggested itself to her. 
She would stay, but he should not know it. She 
would hide herself among the rocks and trees and 
watch his goings and comings, herself unseen. 
So she might be near to protect, or at least to 
share in his peril. With a thrill of terror, which 
yet was swallowed up in a greater relief, she turned 
aside and began to crawl silently, rapidly, like a 
snake, over rocks and through brush, to the north- 
ern wall of the meadow, whose scarred and jagged 
base would afford her a hiding place and command 
an outlook. 

With an instinct of caution she had instructed 
one other, the previous day, in the secret of her 
journey to the meadow. This other was her son 
— how or by whom was known only to herself. 
He was a graceless reprobate, following most of 
the vices of the white race and few of their virtues. 
He wore their dress and spoke their speech after 
a manner of his own. A year or two in their 
schools had taught him to read and write. He 
was a gambler and a drunkard, but he earned a 
variable pittance as a guide, and was clever enough 
to keep out of jail. The old woman could not be 
said to love him, but she had a sort of pride in his 
flashy American clothes and a great wonder at his 
accomplishments. Even his vices savored of a 
deep knowledge of white men’s ways, and she 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


91 


regarded them with tolerance, if not with com- 
placency. In his turn he gave her a sort of grudg- 
ing obedience, and plundered her freely of all that 
she had. 

She had instructed him, if no word came from 
her before twenty-four hours had passed, to seek 
her out at a certain blasted fir tree on the north 
cliff of the meadow. This, also, was in sight from 
her hiding place. So, having disposed herself 
quite to her liking, she sat down to watch and 
wait events with the patience of her people. 

It was here the great catastrophe of the morn- 
ing hours found her, still watching, still patient. 
Amid the grinding of the rocks, the slipping of 
tons of shale and sandstone, she was tossed about, 
harried, torn, beaten almost into insensibility by 
falling debris. Half dead with pain and terror, 
she had crouched in the shelter of her chosen 
boulder, clinging to its rough surface like a cat. 
Her lips uttered inarticulate cries and formless 
supplications to whatever spirit ruled this hour 
of disaster. The appalling crash of the ruined 
bungalow and stables had roused her to a sudden, 
sharper agony of apprehension. Strong was down 
there somewhere in that heap of ruins. She must 
go to him. But when she had struggled to her 
feet, sick and bruised, her first glance showed her 
the little party huddled in the open meadow, and 
foremost among them the figure that her eyes 
could not mistake. 


92 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


So he was safe! For some time this fact was 
enough. She lay quiet, feasting her anxious heart 
with the sight of him, assuring herself by the way 
he stood and moved and walked that no harm 
had come to him. So she rested content, recover- 
ing gradually from shock and fear. Joy began 
to send the blood in livelier measure along her 
veins. The great danger was past — the unknown 
terror had come and gone, and they were safe, 
safe! Soon he would leave the little meadow- 
valley and she would follow him down to the 
city. And, perhaps, when the winter approached 
he would come once more among the Piutes to 
hunt the big game. Her only care was to watch 
that she might know when he was ready to go, 
and follow him, always at a distance, never 
running the risk of his rebuke. 

She had crouched, hour after hour, behind the 
rock, watching, conscious neither of hunger nor 
weariness. She had seen them build their fire, 
and prepare and eat their meal. Then had 
followed what caused her a slow wonder. In- 
stead of the preparations for departure which 
she had expected, she saw the men begin a care- 
ful examination of the cliffs in every direction. 

Soon she discovered that their search would 
involve her hiding place. She had fied before 
them like a frightened rabbit, dodging from rock 
to rock, crawling among the underbrush, escap- 
ing their notice only by constant vigilance. And, 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


98 


as she hid herself anew, she wondered more and 
more what it might mean. 

Noon passed with no cessation of the search. 
Afternoon drew on, reached its height, and waned 
toward evening. Still she saw no preparations 
for departure. Could it be that they meant to 
linger there over another night? Well, it was 
all one to her. Only, under cover of darkness, 
she would creep close enough to hear him speak. 
It was when the shadow of the weird twilight 
began to cross the meadow and steal away the 
color from flowers and grass, that she heard a 
call from far up the cliff overhead. She raised 
herself cautiously to look. 

On the edge of the north wall of the meadow, 
near the blasted flr, crouched the figure of her 
scapegrace son at a perilous angle. He was un- 
mistakably the worse for liquor. A battered 
black derby rested far back on his head; his tie, 
of brilliant purple, was disarranged. An old 
Prince Albert coat that he had obtained some- 
where, probably without the owner’s knowledge, 
flapped its tails in the wind that swept down the 
mountain side from the upper level. He was 
plainly much excited. As soon as the old woman 
appeared in answer to his signal, he began to 
shout unintelligible words to her and to wave his 
arms in fantastic gestures. 

The height of the cliff where he clung prevented 
her from hearing his words, and she signified the 


94 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


fact to him, placing her hands on her ears and 
shaking her head. At this his excitement in- 
creased; he shouted more loudly; his arms pointed 
to the south in gestures that seemed to convey 
some sinister meaning. She could make nothing 
of all this, and fear came upon her that he might 
be seen by the exploring party, and so the secret 
of her presence there would be betrayed. A few 
minutes before she had watched them gathered 
wearily about their camp-fire, as if abandoning 
their search. But now an anxious glance revealed 
to her Strong making his way directly toward 
the bunglow from which the figure on the cliff 
must be plainly visible. She signalled the excited 
Indian to go, and retreated into her hiding place. 
But to her dismay he still lingered. His gestures 
seemed to urge her to go with him and she shook 
her head savagely, motioning him away. Still 
he hesitated, while fear and impatience worked 
her up into a fury against the graceless scamp. 
She motioned to him so imperatively that his 
usual grudging obedience showed itself at last. 
Still he plainly was not satisfied. On the edge of 
departure he turned, swaying on uncertain legs. 
Then he took what seemed to be a piece of paper 
from his pocket and wrote something on it. This 
he wrapped about a stone and threw it with fairly 
good aim in the direction of the boulder where 
she crouched. At last, while she fairly quivered 
with apprehension at his delay, he thrust his 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


95 


derby still further back on his head and trotted 
unsteadily away through the trees until he was 
lost to view. 

The woman drew a long breath of relief. Reas- 
sured by the silence about her, she ventured to 
look out from behind the rock. Strong had 
stopped beside the ruined bungalow. He was 
leaning over and pulling at one of the beams 
that projected from the fallen building. Absorbed 
in his work, he apparently had seen nothing. 
She drew back again and relaxed her strained 
attitude. All was well. 

Soon her thoughts turned to the message that 
had been thrown down to her over the cliff. It 
must have been important that he should have 
taken so much trouble about it. Curiosity over- 
came caution, and she peered once again around 
the corner of the rock. Strong was standing erect 
now. Some one had joined him, a pale-faced 
girl whose beauty and grace overawed the old 
woman, even at this distance. He was talking 
to her. Some instinct told the Indian that he 
would notice nothing now that went on about 
him. She crawled out from her hiding place and 
wormed her way through the underbrush to the 
point where she had seen the stone strike the 
ground. A few moments of careful searching, 
interrupted by anxious glances toward Strong and 
his companion, showed her what she sought. 


96 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


It was a torn piece of brown paper upon which 
he had scrawled a few words in Spanish, the only 
language she could read. 

“San Francisco burns with fire. You can see 
the light. All other cities lost in great earth- 
quake. The padres say it is, perhaps, the end of all 
things. ” 

Astounded, shaking with formless terrors, she 
raised her eyes to the southern sky where his 
gestures had pointed. The dull, red glow she saw 
there became all at once the fiery sign of impend- 
ing doom. Grasping the slip of paper she started 
to run in the direction of the bungalow. Her 
terror was swallowed up in the overwhelming 
need for human companionship and reassurance. 
She stumbled, she fell, she climbed sometimes on 
hands and knees, panting with the weight of her 
appalling news. 

It was then that the dog caught sight of her 
and gave the alarm of her approach. 

“San Francisco burns with fire!” she repeated. 
She flung herself upon the ground beside 
Strong, clinging to his knees with the shrill, 
inarticulate cries by which the women of her race 
voice their grief. 

With a quick gesture. Strong raised her to her 
feet. “What do you say.f^” he demanded. 

“Ai yi,” she wailed, rocking her body to and 
fro, “San Francisco burns, great cities are all 
swallowed up, the world must begin again.” 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


97 


Her tone and gesture were intensely dramatic and 
carried conviction. 

“Great God!” said Strong, aghast. 

“What is it.^ What does she say?” begged 
Ethel, terrified at his look. 

Her question was echoed from the shadows 
behind them. The others had heard the woman *s 
cries and were hastening up in alarm. “What’s 
wrong?” demanded Onverell. 

Strong translated her words, too stunned to 
soften any of their meaning. Those who heard 
him stared at each other, speechless and stricken. 

“Ai yi,” said Annunciata again, roused to rude 
eloquence by the wonder of her news. “San 
Francisco burns with fire. There you see the 
light of it. ” 

She pointed to the south, and their gaze, follow- 
ing her gesture, saw the dull, sinister glow across 
the sky. 

“It is the day of wrath,” continued the old 
woman in a sort of weird chant. “The padres 
say it is sent for the sins of the people. ” 

“What does she say?” half whispered Mrs. 
Onverell. 

“The priests have told her the world is suffer- 
ing for the sins of the people, ” translated Strong, 
mechanically. 

In the growing darkness of that awful night the 
thing seemed altogether possible. They stood 
silent among the shadows, and felt the life that 


98 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


they had known slip away from them, as it seemed, 
forever. All the props and patch- work of civiliza- 
tion seemed to fall with a crash that was the grind- 
ing of rocks, the roar of trembling earth strata. 
They were face to face with the naked, primitive 
facts of existence. It was overpowering. The old 
Scriptural pictures of wrath and judgment seemed 
all at once vital with a present meaning. Nor was 
there any one of them who doubted that the judg- 
ment was righteous. Suddenly Strong turned to 
the woman. 

“How didfyou learn this?” he questioned in 
English.^ “You have not been out of the mead- 
ow?” 

“No chief, forgive,” she answered, slowly. 

“Who,^then, told you?” 

“Enrico, he tell,” she muttered, groping with 
the diflSculties of the strange language. 

“Where is he?” 

She pointed upward to the blasted fir tree. 

“There.” 

“Henry there, on that cliff!” 

Excitement tingled through his words, and the 
others, dazed though they were, caught the thrill 
of it. 

“Hefcould bring help!” exclaimed Onverell. 

“He could carry a message,” said Forrest. 

“Help^from outside,” murmured Ethel. “You 
said perhaps that was the only way. ” 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


They crowded close about the woman with 
growing eagerness. Strong laid his hand on her 
shoulder. 

“Listen, Annunciata,” he said. “We are shut 
in here by the fallen rocks. We can find no way 
out. Where is Henry We will send him for 
help.” 

“He go,” answered Annundata, looking up 
rather bewildered into their faces. 

“Gone!” echoed Strong. 

“ Gone ! ” exclaimed Onverell. “ Why didn ’t you 
keep him! Why didn’t you hold onto him.?” 

“Him very much drunk,” said Annunciata, 
complacently. 

“Lord!” groaned Jose, whether in envy or 
despair it was difficult to tell. 

“So you’ve lost us our one chance, curse you!” 
exclaimed Forrest in uncontrollable agitation. 
If the woman had been near him he would have 
struck her. 

Strong put an arm about her shoulder. “It is 
hard to read an Indian’s mind,” he said gently. 
“Annunciata understands only one thing well — to 
love.” 

The old woman comprehended their meaning 
slowly. She held out the piece of torn paper to 
Strong with a gutteral ejaculation. 

“Ai yi,” she said, rocking her body. “Out 
there all gone. Why not good to stay here?” 


100 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


The words checked their excitement. Again 
they stared at each other, speechless. 

‘ ‘ Do you suppose, ” began Onverell. He stopped 
and moistened his dry lips. “Can the woman 
be telling the truth?” 

He was looking at Strong, and after a moment 
Strong answered him. 

“Why not?” 

“But whole cities wiped out?” 

“Such things have been.” 

“But whole cities — ” persisted Onverell, as if 
reiteration of the words might make them easier 
of belief. 

“If there had been a city here last night,” said 
Strong, “would it be standing now?” 

“No, no!” sobbed Mrs. Onverell suddenly, 
burying her face on Jim’s shoulder. 

Once more they felt in fancy the sickening sway 
of the earth beneath them. 

“San Francisco gone!” murmured Ethel. 

“All gone.” The old woman took up the 
burden of her tale again, — “Oak-land, Ber-ke-ley, 
all gone. ” 

“Lord!” said Jose, again. All other words 
seemed stricken from his vocabulary. 

“I have not heard the whistle of a train all 
day,” admitted Onverell. “The Union Pacific 
passes not far from here. Then there is the local 
track we came by. ” 

“All gone,” repeated Annunciata, rocking her 
body. “Ai yi, the world must begin again.” 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


101 


“With fire!” repeated Ethel. “Why, it’s our 
homes that are burning; all our friends are there.” 
She looked around as an animal looks at the walls 
of its trap. 

“They will get away,” said Strong. “Fire is 
not hard to escape. Better fire than pestilence 
and famine.” 

“What is to save us from pestilence and fam- 
ine,” demanded Forrest suddenly, “unless we 
get away from here.^^” 

Strong turned to him quickly. “Because we 
shall do something to prevent it,” he said. 
“There is always something to be done. Just 
now we’re all going to gather pine boughs and 
brakes for our beds. Rest is our greatest need, 
and the night brings counsel, as the Indians 
say. ” 

“I shall never sleep again,” moaned Mrs. 
Onverell, but Onverell, with the wisdom of love, 
took her in his arms. 

“Come and help me, Mayme,” he said. “I 
am as tired as a dog, and that fern bed sounds to 
me like a downy couch of Paradise. ” 

Strong moved over to where Ethel stood, 
staring at the red glow in the southern sky. His, 
too, was the intuition of love. 

“Miss Stanton,” he said, “might I put Annun- 
ciata in your care? She has had a hard experience 
and I suspect she needs food. Will you make 
her comfortable? ” 


102 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


Ethel turned at once, some of the strained look 
left her face. 

“Of course,” she said quickly, “thank you for 
asking me. ” 

“Her welfare is dear to me,” he said simply. 

He stood aside to let them pass. His words, 
his manner, left her happily confused, as one who 
has received a delicate tribute. She wondered 
at the swift light which had come into his face 
in the last few moments, making him seem to 
lose ten years of age and suffering. 

“He must have looked like that before the 
night of the quarrel, ” she thought. 

Strong, as she passed him, was conscious of her 
sweet feminine personality as if he had inhaled 
the perfume of an exquisite flower. The whole 
universe seemed throbbing about him to a mighty, 
soul-thrilling music. For Annunciata’s words had 
suddenly taken on to him their complete mean- 
ing. “The world must begin again.” The old 
world that had tried and condemned him; the 
world that had held him a social outcast and 
denied him everything but the privilege of work 
without its rewards; this world was swept away in 
a sea of flame or buried in yawning chasms of the 
earthquake’s making. In the new world that 
must begin with primitive facts, with the mere 
struggle for existence, what would any man’s past 
count? It was a clean slate. The very qualities 
that he had wrested out of that past, the patience. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


lOS 


the endurance, the mastery of circumstances, 
would make him a leader in this new world about 
to begin. What a God-given resurrection! He 
felt a burden of shame and sorrow, that seemed a 
tangible thing, roll away from him. He stood up 
straight and free, he lifted his face to the stars 
and laughed. 

“Strong,” said Onverell’s agitated voice beside 
him, “Strong, don’t you hear me.^” 

“Well?” questioned Strong, dimly conscious of 
him through the thoughts that thronged his brain. 

“Don’t you see how the water’s rising in the 
brook here? It’s overflowed both banks since 
morning. All these meadows were lakes once. 
Suppose the outlet of the water has been cut off 
by the settling of earth strata! We’re caught 
like rats in a trap ! ” 

“There is no fear,” answered Strong, his face 
raised to the stars. 

“But, man — ” 

“I tell you there is no fear. We have not been 
saved, we few out of millions, perhaps, to drown 
like rats. We shall live — live to make a new 
world ! ” 

He laughed again, as he had not laughed in ten 
years, and strode off through the darkness, leaving 
Onverell to stare after him in dull wonder. 


Chapter X 


W ITHIN the next three weeks 
the little mountain meadow began 
to take on the full beauty and lux- 
uriance of early summer. The 
chill of the snow, piled deeply in hidden can- 
yons, was gone much sooner here than in the 
higher altitudes where the larger meadows and 
basins might as yet be showing only a faint touch 
of green. 

Here the banks of the widening stream were 
already starred with white violets and purple 
grasses. Everywhere along the rocky crevices 
were ferns and wall flowers, with delicate maiden- 
hair hiding in grottoes. Sedges, matted willows 
and trembling aspens leaned over the water. The 
shadowy belt of two-leaved pine that fringed the 
open grassy space, with its outer rim of majestic 
silver firs, had become the home of innumerable 
birds which fluttered in and out among their 
branches all day, with the delicate music of the 
mating season. The meadow was like an emerald 
lake, stirred by the wind into a rippling foam of 
many-hued flowers. Everywhere it was securely 
hemmed in by majestic granite walls, sculptured 
into domes and battlements of a silvery radiance. 
104 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


105 


Plainly, some glacier of an early period had eroded 
out the little basin, leaving it unapproachable to 
any but winged creatures, as if nature had hidden 
there secrets to be discovered only by chosen 
ones, who should not be afraid of the dragons 
who guarded the treasure. 

Three weeks and a day or two more the little 
party had been shut into this gem-like basin; 
neither had any one as yet devised any means of 
escape. This enforced stay among beautiful 
solitudes, with all the attendant conditions, had 
wrought upon them with great differences, accord- 
ing to the soul of each. 

To some nature had already breathed syllables 
of her secret things, so that to them the meadow 
was no longer a prison, but a garden of dreams, 
an outer court of the undiscovered country. 
Such a one was Ethel. To her, in spite of shock 
and inevitable sorrow, every day of the new life 
was a revelation. She had come to the house- 
party worn with late hours and excitement, with 
an unconfessed sickness of the heart that her life 
seemed to yield her so small a measure of content. 
Weeks of pure air, long nights of refreshing sleep, 
following days of unaccustomed exercise, simple 
and scanty food, had transformed her. The 
shadows beneath her eyes had disappeared; a 
soft color had crept into her cheeks. More than 
this, under the stress of strange and deep ex- 
periences, her nature seemed to have cast off 


106 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


much that was alien to it. Her butterfly wings 
of coquetry were laid aside, and the woman be- 
hind them looked at a new world with eyes of 
wonder. Already the old life had begun to seem 
dream-like and unreal, as the crowded ways of 
the city do seem when one gets outside the circle 
of its influence. The men had been brought face 
to face with its problems of mere existence and 
self-preservation. Forced back to the primitive 
and fundamental, dazed by the clamor of elemen- 
tal appetites, the cry of their bodies for food and 
warmth, Onverell and Forrest — the capitalist 
with his useless million, and the brilliant promoter 
whose million was almost made — ^found them- 
selves utterly at a loss in the new environment. 
Dismayed, ineffective, at the mercy of constantly 
changing impulses, they were forced to turn to 
the man who seemed so astonishingly fitted to 
meet and control the changed conditions. 

Strong had made no mistake in foretelling his 
place in the new order of things. He was the 
acknowledged leader. It was under his direction 
that all necessary labor had been accomplished 
in these three weeks. The wreckage of the house 
and stables had been his first concern. In rude 
coflSns, knocked together from planks with stones 
for hammers, the dead had been buried. Other 
planks, a blanket or two, and some recovered 
rugs had been utilized to make a little shelter 
for Mrs. Onverell and Ethel, for neither would 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


107 


consent to return to the bungalow, a part of which 
might have been made habitable. An Indian 
serape hung at the door; a rude window, cut into 
one of the sides, was protected by a curtain. 
Within this shack were two fern-beds, some chairs, 
bureaus and tables, saved from the wreckage. 
Annunciata slept on a blanket at the threshold. 

The men accomodated themselves outside by 
the camp-fire, which they took turns in replenish- 
ing. It was never allowed to go out. For strange 
visitors stole down sometimes out of the neighboring 
mountains, and fiery eyes gleamed from among 
the brush after the shadows fell and the scent of 
the evening cooking had drifted far on the air. 

A few recovered kitchen utensils, part of a 
barrel of flour, as much of sugar, and the carcass 
of OnverelTs blooded Jersey cow had simplified 
somewhat the problem of food. Traps, of Strong ’s 
manufacture, had contributed rabbits, quail and 
wood doves to their scanty menu. 

The heavy timbers and beams of the bungalow 
had been utilized to construct a temporary barrier 
for the waters of the brook, which ran with in- 
creased violence. Every day it wore its bed 
deeper and overflowed the meadow for a more 
considerable area. That there was a menace in 
the continued increase of its flow they all recog- 
nized, but the timber had so far confined the water 
successfully, and other problems were more press- 
ing. 


108 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


Chief of these problems was the necessity for 
clothing. The light silk dressing gowns, in which 
Ethel and Mrs. Onverell had made their escape 
from the house, were entirely inadequate and 
gave rise to real suffering. It was Strong again 
who had come to the rescue. The skin of the 
little Jersey, tanned after a fashion by sun and 
water, he utilized for moccasins. Annunciata 
had sewed them with thorns and strips of leather. 
Onverell had found a broadcloth suit of his wife *s, 
more or less damaged, and a corduroy skirt for 
Ethel, and Strong, with Annunciata ’s help, had 
made for her a little jacket of the leather and 
trimmed it with fringe. Its construction had 
been a source of much interest and many anxious 
consultations. Her delight over it on its com- 
pletion exceeded any past joy over Paris gown or 
carefully tailored suit. Strong had promised her 
that its christening should be in every way appro- 
priate, and they decided upon a fishing excursion 
for breakfast trout, to be undertaken on the first 
favorable morning. 

His call outside her window at daybreak a few 
days later brought her, ready and eager, to the 
door of the shack. Her feet were clad in the 
moccasins, her brown corduroy skirt came to her 
ankles, and over a full, white waist she wore the 
leather jacket. Her soft brown hair, which was 
full of golden lights, she had braided in two braids 
and drawn forward over her shoulders. A bright- 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


109 


hued feather that Jose had brought her the day 
before was fastened behind her ear. 

“How do I look?” she asked, stepping out from 
the door of the shack into the ineffable pink radi- 
ance of the new born day. “How beautiful!” 
she exclaimed, clasping her hands with an uncon- 
scious gesture. “See, our valley seems to be the 
centre from which that lovely light radiates. It 
is the dawn meadow!” 

“The dawn meadow!” he repeated. “It is 
that, indeed. ” 

She raised her eyes to him, full of happy laugh- 
ter, and he met her look with the freedom that 
had been his in every act since the night when the 
old world went out in flame and earthquake 
shock. 

“How do I look?” she demanded. 

His eyes rather than his lips answered her. 
“Come,” he said, “it is a morning of Paradise. 
Annunciata has gone ahead to find where the fish 
are hiding. Let me help you over these rocks.” 

A line of rocks had been laid across the meadow 
grass, over which the swollen waters of the brook 
were creeping. He held out his hand to help her, 
but she sprang past him as lightly as a bird and 
laughed back at him from the rocks ahead. 

“I have wings this morning,” she said. “I 
don’t think I was ever out so early before. Per- 
haps I might always feel my wings before the sun 
is up. They are fairy-like things, all gossamer 


110 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


and cobweb lace, that vanish in the prosaic Iieat 
of day. Did you ever notice what an enemy the 
broad light of day is to fancies made of gossamer.^ ” 

‘‘IVe noticed it,” he said smiling, “and fancier 
are beautiful things, truer, perhaps, than the 
glare of the day. You wouldn’t make a good 
sun-worshipper. ” 

“No, I love the dawn and the twilight and the 
night. They are full of promise. They don’t 
give all they have. ” 

They were walking now along the path on the 
further side of the brook. Tall aspens overhung^ 
the water, brakes as high as their arm-pits grew 
in the marshy soil. The day, not fully risen, was 
here little more than a soft gloom, with delicate 
mists rising from the hollows. Strange, wild 
scents were still in the air. Subdued rustlings 
were heard amid the brakes, or further away 
where the tangled undergrowth was thick. Rex,, 
the collie, trotting along by them, stopped often 
to raise his head and sniff the air with agitation. 
During these weeks, the dog had been left to him- 
self, he had hunted his own food and made his 
bed among the grasses. The eiffect upon him had 
been curious. His honest brown eyes had devel- 
oped a crafty, watchful expression. His body had 
grown lean and muscular. Strange instincts often 
seemed to stir within him, expressing themselves 
in long drawn howls from a muzzle lifted to the 
night sky, or sudden, darting rushes of incredible 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


111 


swiftness after something among the shadows, 
accompanied by a great excitement, gleaming 
eyes and frothing tongue. 

Such an impulse seized him now, scenting the 
wild odors on the morning breeze. He stood 
rigidly at attention, seeming to quiver from head 
to tail-tip. Then he darted away like an arrow 
from the bow, with great leaps that carried him 
over rocks and brush, on and up and out of sight, 
the full length of the meadow. Then, while they 
watched, he appeared again out of the mists, 
running grandly, sweeping by them like a cavalry 
charge, head forward, chest low to the ground, 
eyes glaring straight ahead. 

It was magnificent, thrilling. They forgot 
themselves in watching it. Only Ethel’s hand 
clutched at Strong’s coat sleeve, as if her enjoy- 
ment was vaguely tinged with fear. 

“That dog is reverting,” said Strong with 
interest. “Those are things his ancestors used 
to do when they were meat-hunting, predatory 
creatures. He couldn’t tell you why he knows 
it, but he does. Don’t you, boy.^^” 

The dog, who had just crashed out of the bushes 
to the left, stopped suddenly and fell into step 
beside them with a wag of the tail. 

“It was glorious!” said Ethel. 

This morning she was a radiant being, and care 
seemed to have dropped from her. Involuntary 
trills of song, like shy bird-notes, escaped her lips 


112 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


as they went along; Strong held his breath to 
listen. That they should be walking here together 
this way was one of the proofs that God was in 
his Heaven. 

As they made their way along the path he 
stooped to examine a lace work pattern of little 
tracks in the dust. Then he raised his head with 
a grunt of satisfaction. 

“What are they.^” questioned Ethel. 

“Quail,” said Strong. 

“How do you know?” 

“By the shape and size.” 

Sure enough Rex’s inquiring nose stirred up a 
sharp whir of wings from the brush near by. 

“A mother-bird,” he said softly, and Ethel 
called quickly to the dog. 

“Come here, Rex, don’t frighten the darling.” 

The sun was now rising and a break in the 
trees gave them a tangled bit of brush to cross. 

“Step carefully,” said Strong. “There’s been 
a snake by here. Look out on the left. ” 

“How do you know?” questioned Ethel. 

He pointed to a sinuous line that cut the path 
at right angles. He drew his knife from his 
pocket. 

“Why is he on the left?” she asked timidly. 
“Are you sure?” 

“Do you see that break in his trail? Some- 
thing startled him, perhaps our coming. He 
swerved from the path a little. See the narrower 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


113 


mark where his tail passed? It points to the 
right.” 

“Are you going to kill him?” asked Ethel, her 
eyes fearful. 

“I must for our protection. We can’t leave 
snakes here to breed. They are unpleasant 
neighbors. Stay here a moment.” 

She waited in the path, her whole form rigid 
with the woman’s instinctive dread of crawling 
things. A sudden, whirring rattle came from 
the brush and she shut her eyes tight. 

A moment or two later a laugh sounded beside 
her, and she opened them again to see Strong 
.washing his knife in the water of the brook. 

“I’m reverting, too,” said Ethel shamelessly. 
“That’s the stirring of forgotten instincts. One 
of my remote progenitors was an ostrich who 
lived in the desert. I think I did remarkably 
well not to scream. ” 

“You did, ” he assented gravely. “As a reward 
you shall have this for a belt, if you will carry it 
back to camp. ” 

He held out a long skin with a formidable 
bunch of rattles at the end. Ethel shrank back. 

“Very well,” he said in broad amusement, and 
started to put it into his pocket. Her eyes grew 
covetous. 

“Can’t I have it unless I carry it?” 

“No, there are always conditions. Haven’t 
you learned that?” 


114 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


Her look became suddenly determined. ‘T 
will have the belt. It’s a beauty. Here, give it 
to me quickly before I repent. ” 

She held out her hand and he placed the skin 
across it. At the slimy touch her face grew white 
and she gasped, though she held on to it bravely 
and walked ahead. 

But the little trill of her song had died away, and 
in a few moments he relented. He reached over 
and drew the skin through her leather belt so 
that it hung securely just out of the way. 

“That’s better,” he said, and she smiled at 
him with a relief and gratitude that he found 
absurdly touching. 

“Where do we fish.^” she asked, as they still 
continued side by side along the narrow path 
which was now little more than a suggestion, 
among ferns and grasses. 

“Wherever we find Annunciata. She will know 
the right place. ” 

“How will she know?” 

He looked at her whimsically, and she laughed. 

“My childhood isn’t so far away that you need 
to look at me like that. Besides, these aren’t 
the questions of mere unthinking ignorance. I ’m 
using the Socratic method.” 

“Pardon me, I should have known.” 

“You see,” she went on with sudden earnest- 
ness, “in a new environment it’s those who adjust 
themselves that prove fit to survive, isn ’t it? I ’ve 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


115 


read that somewhere. That’s what I’m trying 
to do.” 

“ Then I ’ll answer all your questions cheerfully, ” 
he said with an attempt to win back her happy 
mood. But she had grown grave; her eyes were 
wistful. 

“Mr. Strong, do you think anyone has been 
trying to find us from outside there?” 

“Who can tell?” 

“If they have,” she went on, studying his 
face, “they ought to have communicated with us 
by this time. Three weeks.” 

“Who can tell that?” he repeated, but his eyes 
answered her better. 

‘ 'Then — if we are to stay here the only way to 
live happily, successfully, is to adjust ourselves 
to everything, isn’t it?” 

He knew of what she was thinking and the cause 
for the shadow that had fallen across her eyes. 
While his lips answered her, he was busy with 
thoughts of Forrest and the ideas her words had 
called up. For Forrest was the one of them all 
who rebelled day and night, with all his being, 
against this thing that had befallen them. He 
lived from hour to hour in the hope of rescue or 
escape, and raged against the fate that kept them 
prisoners. Forrest had been a pre-eminently 
successful man under the old conditions. He 
understood and filled all the demands of business 
and social success. All that was his life; the 


116 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


excitement of big deals, the thrill of the venture- 
some moment, the flattery of men and women. 
He had not known that it meant so much to him, 
that he would be lost and adrift away from it. 
And now he was placed where his special kind of 
brilliancy was worse than useless, and he was not 
showing to advantage. 

It takes some largeness of nature to find joy or 
even contentment in the primitive. These three 
weeks had been a test of great severity. The 
little pleasure party had been face to face with 
conditions under which men often relapse into 
the beast. Exhausting labor, scanty food, secured 
by force or cunning, intense solitude and self 
communion — all these, to one who accepts them 
with a good will, make for health, both physical 
and mental, and fitness and the power to survive. 
But the heart that cherishes hot resentment 
against its fate grows quickly embittered, purpose- 
less, often cruel. 

So with Forrest. His cheery laugh was no 
more heard. He had grown sullen. The only 
topic that roused him to animation was the 
possible chance of escape. Often he refused to 
eat and brooded silently by the fire far into the 
night. As far as possible he avoided all labor, 
and Strong suspected that he felt a physical 
weakness of which he was ashamed. 

To Ethel, Forrest spoke seldom, and mostly to 
utter vague outbursts of regret that they had ever 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


117 


come there and vaguer promises to take her away 
before long. Sometimes he avoided her alto- 
gether, as if unable or unwilling to show her the 
protecting tenderness she had the right to expect 
from him. The shadow of this was what Strong 
read in her face. 

Their momentary absorption was broken by 
Jose’s mournful tones which sounded suddenly 
beside them. 

“That’s a fine snake skin you got, ma’am.” 

Jose was one of those to whom the enforced 
stay in the meadow was no hardship. His frame, 
toughened by long exposure, found the labor 
required of him easy, the food sufficient. For 
amusement he addressed himself to Annunciata, 
who had conceived a violent dislike for him, and 
whose temper, uncertain with age, made her 
companionship full of excitement. It was evident 
that he had just come from a passage at arms 
with her, for there was a twinkle of joy in his eye 
which contradicted the habitual solemnity of the 
lower part of his face. 

“ ’Tain ’t every one can hev company on his 
mornin’ walks,” he remarked in a tone of self- 
pity. 

“Why, Jose, are you lonely?” inquired Strong, 
suspecting that something lay back of the twinkle. 
“You’d better come along with us. Annunciata ’s 
up the stream a way. ” 

His look grew scornful. 


118 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


'‘Lonesome! Huh, not so’s you’d notice it. 
There’s times when a man’d ruther be lonesome. 
I’ve spent whole winters on the plains and never 
see’d a lady person. Besides I seen the Injin a 
waitin’ fer yer up there, and — ” The twinkle 
deepened, but he glanced at Ethel and stopped. 

“Go on, Jose, don’t mind me,” she begged. 

“Waal,” he said, slowly, “it ain ’t very pleasant 
to be told to go to hell, ’specially by a lady. ” 

“Jose, you’re a shameless wretch,” said Strong, 
“go home and build up a fire for our fish. ” 

He disappeared down the path with what, in 
another, would have been a chuckle. 

A few rods further up the stream they found 
Annunciata by a little pool formed from the 
overfiow of the main stream. Here she had 
managed to imprison eight or ten trout by a dam 
of stones and twigs. At their approach she held 
her fingers to her lips and pointed to the pool 
where occasional gleams of silver flashed. A 
light mist had drifted in among the cliffs, the edge 
of some fog blanket over the ocean below. Annun- 
ciata ’s figure, as she stood half hidden with finger 
on lips, became suddenly mysterious, like that of 
some prophetess of old. 

“I catch,” she muttered. “They come to me 
this day, not you. ” 

Out of deference to the others Strong had 
commanded her to speak English. After three 
weeks of effort her words came more easily, her 
accent was less difficult to understand. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


119 


“As you will,” he answered her. Obeying his 
whispered direction, Ethel established herself be- 
hind the shrubbery on the bank, and he took 
his place beside her. The old woman crawled 
slowly, carefully to the edge of the pool. She 
thrust her naked arm little by little into the water, 
until it was buried to the elbow. Then she let it 
hang motionless. A moment passed, two mo- 
ments, and not a quiver stirred the woman’s 
body. Then suddenly her fingers shot out and 
closed like a vise about something that struggled. 
A big trout flung himself out of the water in a 
mighty leap, and lay quivering on the grass. 

“Oh!” breathed Ethel, her eyes shining with 
excitement. 

Half a dozen big trout were captured in the 
same way, and then Annunciata rested while 
Strong cleaned the fish and prepared them for 
broiling. The gray mist swept about them in 
long, fantastic spirals, blotting out the newly 
risen sun. Ethel watched Strong at his work 
with a vague, uneasy sense of having done all this 
before, long ago. It was only a formless sugges- 
tion, yet an eerie feeling took possession of her. 

“You have faith in Annunciata ’s impulses, 
haven’t you?” she asked of Strong. 

“Yes, she is an old woman and an Indian. 
She sees things that I can ’t see. ” 

“What sort of things? Do you really believe 
that she sees things?” 


120 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“Yes.” 

Ethel looked at the old woman, who now 
squatted comfortably on her heels, rocking her 
body back and forth. 

“What sort of things.^” she repeated in a low 
voice. 

“Ask her.” 

Ethel considered the stooped, swaying figure 
a moment. Then she went over and sat down 
beside her. 

“Annunciata,” she said, “what do you see.^^” 

The old woman turned her head with a sort of 
grunt, and studied the fresh young face. Perhaps 
she found in it something imaginative, credulous, 
something akin to the primal spirit that looked 
from her own eyes, glowing strangely in her 
wrinkled face. She grunted again. 

“Look,” she said, and raised a crooked finger 
pointing into the mist. 

Ethel looked, half closing her eyes in imitation 
of the other. The giant firs towered above her, 
their tops lost among the mist spirals which the 
breeze was driving hither and thither. It is an 
uplifting thing to sit in the shadow of great trees. 
One seems then to understand things that are 
withheld from closed rooms and crowded streets. 
Ethel, through her half-shut eyes, saw the wind- 
driven mist assume strange, vast shapes that bent 
and swayed toward her and lifted flowing robes 
in solemn gestures. And the murmur in the air 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


121 


might have been only the rustle of fir boughs, or 
whispered messages of warning and command. 
So the ancient Druids learned to worship. Ethel 
was thrilled with a sudden overpowering sense of 
mystery. Great presences seemed indeed to be 
all about her. She lifted her eyes to Strong and 
he smiled at the awe in their depths. 

“Can’t you see how it is,” he said, “that the 
primitive people express themselves in poetry? 
The prophets, too, have lived in deserts and 
solitary places. ” 

At this moment the sun broke triumphantly 
through the mist once more, and the freshening 
breeze drove the last clinging spirals to flight. 
The face of the world was changed. The aspen 
boughs danced and gleamed and glowed with a 
million diamond drops. Once more bright-hued 
birds fluttered and sang in the sunlight; the 
mysterious presences were gone. 

Ethel jumped to her feet. “In a moment more 
I might have been talking poetry myself. And 
Annunciata was about to break out into a pro- 
phetic frenzy. ” She laughed up at him. “Do you 
know I am learning all sorts of things I never 
knew before — big, out-of-door things, that I’m 
always going to be glad to remember. ” 

A quick light flashed into his face. He drew 
his sinewy body to its full height. 

“This is my world!” he said; “I understand it, 
it understands me. But that you, too, should 


122 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


learn to understand so readily — tell me, could you 
learn to be happy if you stayed always in the 
open like this — if there should be no city to go 
back to, no conditions different from these here? 
That is what we may find when we get out. ” 

The girl drew a quick breath, and her eyes 
drooped as if she looked into her heart. 

‘T — I think I could be happy.” 

“Not just for a little, while it was novel,” he 
persisted, studying her face with eyes that demand- 
ed the truth, for her answer held the measure of 
much that the new world had for him. “Could 
you learn to forget the other life — to think of it 
without regret?” 

He was bending close to her, studying the 
changing expressions of her face. 

“Ethel,” said a voice beside them. Their 
absorption had been complete, and a measure of 
confusion fell upon them as they looked up and saw 
Forrest standing in the path. They had not 
heard his footsteps, nor the dog’s whine of greet- 
ing. Forrest’s face was dark, he looked from one 
to the other strangely. 

“I was commissioned to tell you that they are 
getting hungry back there,” he said. “It’s nearly 
eight o’clock.” 

Ethel jumped to her feet. 

“We’re going right away now to cook the trout. 
We have five beauties. ” 

“Very well.” 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


12S 


“Aren’t you going to have breakfast with us?” 
she asked, for he was turning away. 

“No,” he said shortly, “I’m off for the day.” 

And as they watched him he disappeared with 
long strides in the direction of the gorge. Neither 
did he once glance back. 

♦ * !(e :is :Jc * 

When Forrest strode into camp that night his 
face was white with fatigue, but he wore an air of 
fixed purpose. He ate a few mouthfuls of broth 
in silence and then threw himself full length before 
the fire. 

“You look tired. Bob,” said Ethel. 

“ I am, ” he answered. His tone was gentle again, 
and he made an effort to smile up into her face as 
she bent toward him. 

‘ ‘ Tired ! ” grumbled Onverell. “ I never worked 
so hard in my life, and I thought I knew something 
about work, too. And now Strong says we have 
to begin to clear away brush tomorrow as a pro- 
tection against forest fires. ” 

“ Forest fires ! ” exclaimed Forrest. “ Why, we ’ll 
all be out of here within a week. I guess the fires 
can take all we leave and welcome. ” 

Nobody answered this for a moment. Then 
Strong looked up from an axe handle that he was 
carving. 

“It’s better to be ready for an emergency,” 
he said. “To be hemmed in here by forest fires 
would be uncomfortable and probably danger- 


ous. 


124 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“Indeed,” sneered Forrest. “By that line of 
argument you’ll begin in a day or two to get 
ready for next winter. ” 

“It might not be such a bad plan,” assented 
Strong cheerfully. “We are above the snow line, 
and the winter is likely to be severe. ” 

“Well,” said Forrest deliberately, “just count 
me out. I take my orders from white men. No 
doubt you’d like to believe that this is going to 
last forever, and you seem to have hypnotized the 
rest of them into believing it, too. But I, for 
one, intend to get out, and my time’s going to be 
spent in finding a way. ” 

A momentary silence followed his words. Then 
Big Jim rose from his place by the fire and 
stretched his stiff muscles. 

“Jove, I’m tired!” he exclaimed, yawning 
ostentatiously. “I hate to disturb anybody, 
but it’s just about Jimmy ’s bed-time. ” 

Mrs. Onverell looked at him gratefully. 

“You big, lazy fellow,” she said with a caress 
in every word. “What’s the use of all that bone 
and muscle if not to work.^ Besides, you’re 
losing flesh, and it’s very becoming. Come, Ethel, 
I want you to help me find something. There’s 
a dear.” 

Ethel rose to her feet. 

“Good-night, everybody,” she said, and started 
toward the door of the shack. As she passed 
Forrest he moved quickly and sprang to his feet. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


125 

walking beside her until they reached the shack. 
He held aside the blanket that she might pass in. 
“Good-night,” he said. 

“Good-night, Bob,” she answered him. 

He bent close to her and seized her hand rough- 
ly- 

“Don’t you lose faith in me, Ethel,” he said 
hoarsely. “I’m like a man lost in a fog, but 
don’t you lose faith in me. ” 

She looked at him gravely for a moment, deep 
into his eyes, and they shifted and fell. 

“What are you thinking, Ethel .^” he demanded 
nervously. 

“I was wondering. Bob. You make me wonder, 
sometimes. Don’t make me lose faith in you. 
Bob.” 

Then she slipped past him before he could 
answer her, and the blanket fell between them. 
Forrest turned back to the fire. 

“I want to talk to you. Strong,” he said abrupt- 

ly- 

Strong, in the act of moving away, paused. 
“Very well,” he said cheerfully, “shall we sit 
down? It’s more comfortable.” 

Forrest strode forward a few steps until he was 
face to face with the other. 

“I want you to let her alone!” he said fiercely, 
with a jerk of his arm toward the shack. 

Strong lifted his head and the two eyed each 
other for a long moment. 


126 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


‘‘Why?” said Strong at last. 

Forrest gave full vent to the black rage that was 
in his heart. 

“Why? Because every word and look of a 
jail-bird like you is an insult to her! Besides 
that, she belongs to me. ” 

“She has not said so,” answered Strong quiet- 
ly. “You have said it, but she never has, neither 
in word nor look. ” 

A sudden cold fear at Forrest’s heart drove him 
to quick denial. 

“She loves me!” he exclaimed, “I tell you she 
belongs to me, heart and soul. ” 

“Then why should you fear me — or any other 
man?” 

“Because you are not playing fair! She is 
young and impressionable. This thing has shaken 
her — she doesn’t realize that it’s just the novelty 
of it all that makes her happy to be with you.” 

Now the fear bit at the other’s heart. He 
spoke slowly. 

“Just what do you mean?” 

Forrest began to walk up and down, pulling to 
pieces a twig he held in his hand, in a nervous way 
habitual with him. 

“ Every time I come around she’s off somewhere 
with you. I can’t get up early enough to find her 
nor wait long enough for her to come back. I 
want you to let her alone. ” 

The peculiar, swift gleam of intense feeling 
came into Strong’s eyes. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


n7 


“You told me that once before, on the evening 
before the earthquake. I listened to you then, 
for under the old conditions I and my like were 
outcasts. But now I tell you it is different. It 
is doubtful when we get out of here — your days 
of searching must have convinced you of that. 
And what shall we find when we do get out? 
San Francisco is gone, and God knows how much 
else. The old conditions, where you could have 
given her so much more than I, are ended. I 
tell you they are ended. You’re not able any 
longer to take care of her. ” 

“What do you mean?” demanded Forrest, 
hotly. 

“Because the only power you know how to 
make use of is money, and you ’re facing problems 
that can’t be worked out in figures.” 

Forrest was silent for a moment, then he spoke 
with something of his old dignity. 

“The man who can control money has intelli- 
gence enough to learn other things. However it 
may seem to you. Miss Stanton has promised to 
be my wife, and until she takes back that promise 
I have the right to object to your companionship 
for her. ” 

There was a silence. 

“You are right,” said Strong slowly, at last. 
“As long as you prove that you are able to take 
care of her I shall remember what you say.” 


128 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


He walked over to the woodpile and threw a 
couple of logs on the dying fire. Then he turned 
again to Forrest abruptly. 

“You have made too much of this,” he said. 
“If you had asked for her company she would 
have been with you and not with me. ” 

“Possibly,” said Forrest disarmed. “I guess 
I have been pretty self-absorbed. I’ll change all 
that, never fear. ” 

“I shall not fear,” said Strong, “as long as 
you prove that you are able to take care of her.” 

“Lord!” said Forrest stretching out his arms 
with his old genial laugh, “what would I give for 
a good cigar!” 


Chapteb XI 

E l THEL awoke the next morning to a 
feeling of abundant life and energy, such 
I as she had not known since she was a 
^ child. Her first thought was that she 
was glad to be alive; her second, a wonder as to 
what the day might bring. All days were 
wonderful things now, full of health and the out- 
of-doors. Time seemed to have swung back. 
As when she was a child every hour brought her 
a cycle of experience. Little things had become 
momentous and occasioned a joy that seemed 
out of proportion to its cause. She stretched 
herself out on her bed of ferns and listened lazily 
to the sounds that came from the outside. She 
heard the morning chorus of the birds and felt 
the dewy freshness of the mountain air. A little 
phrase repeated itself over and over in her mind — 
‘‘The fullness of life.” She felt that she understood 
it of late — “The fullness of life.” She felt an 
agony of sorrow for every dead thing; for those 
whose lives had gone out so recently under falling 
walls, in smoke and flame; for the dead bird she 
had secretly buried yesterday; for the beetle lying 
on its back beside the path. “The fullness of 
life!” Had any life really an end.^ Could this 
129 


130 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


throbbing vital joy she felt within herself be lost 
in oblivion? No, it was a thing of flame and 
beauty, untouched by any earthly conditions. 
A sudden warmth of certainty seemed poured in 
upon her. She jumped to her feet, a little trill of 
song breaking from her lips as spontaneously as 
the song of the birds outside. She hurried into 
her clothes, still singing. All at once she stopped. 
A voice strong, yet musical, and just now vibrant 
with laughter came to her ears. 

“Get at it cheerfully, Onverell. It’s immensely 
good for you. The joy of work — that’s a theme 
your sort of people don ’t know much about, eh? ” 

She put her hand to her throat unconsciously 
to still a sudden throbbing there. “The fullness of 
life!” Life was something much more than meat 
and drink, and hearing and sight. She felt that 
she stood on the edge of some great experience, 
beautiful far beyond anything she had ever known 
before. 

“These are such wonderful days!” she said, 
aloud. 

“Wonderful days!” echoed Mrs. Onverell 
sleepily, from her corner, “days without maids 
or hot water or coffee! If you want breakfast 
you have to get up and cook it yourself. What 
is wonderful about that?” 

“The being alive,” said Ethel, softly, her eyes 
full of light. 

At breakfast Ethel heard Forrest’s request for 
her company on the brush clearing expedition 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


131 


without surprise. It seemed a part of the joy 
of the day that he should be himself again, willing 
to do his part with the rest gentle, even tender 
toward her. Only one thing troubled her. She 
was conscious that neither gentleness nor rough- 
ness on his part would have power to break the 
happy dream in which she seemed to be moving, 
the wonderful sense of expectancy, and this 
frightened her a little. 

Meanwhile the day was not fulfilling its early 
promise. A haze was creeping over the sun, the 
wind veered to the north and began to blow with 
some force. Occasional gusts bent the tree-tops 
sharply and whistled down the cliffs with an 
ominous sound. As they rose to their feet at the 
conclusion of breakfast, one of these sudden puffs 
caught the ashes and live coals from the fire and 
scattered them widely. The women fled with 
laughing exclamations, and the men stamped 
out the coals wherever they had fallen. Jose and 
Strong glanced at each other rather anxiously. 

“Suppose we carry some lunch with us and 
picnic under the trees at the north end of the 
canyon,’’ suggested Mrs. Onverell. “It always 
lightens work to call it by some other name, and 
climbing rocks and pulling brush are regular 
accompaniments to all the picnics I remember.” 

“That’s a cheerful suggestion,” agreed Forrest 
heartily. “It conveys an idea of festivity that 
these excursions of ours usually lack. Moreover 


132 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


a picnic implies that you have come to the picnic 
ground of your own choice and can leave again 
whenever you are tired of it. ’ ’ 

“I don’t know about that,” mused Onverell. 
“It depends upon your hostess. I’ve stayed at 
some picnics a long time after I was ready to go.” 

“Dame Nature seems to be that kind of a 
hostess,” replied Forrest. “She arranged this 
picnic here for us; we were ready to leave four 
weeks ago, but she hasn’t seemed willing.” 

“Perhaps the picnic isn’t over yet, ’ ’ suggested 
Ethel. “Every day seems to have some new 
surprise.” 

Forrest looked at her, his face darkening. “Do 
you mean, Ethel, that you enjoy this sort of 
thing?” he demanded. 

She met his look without embarassment. “I 
mean that, considering all we have escaped, we 
have much to be thankful for. And, yes, I mean 
that there doesn’t seem to me any great hardship 
to be kept here for a few weeks in this beautiful 
place, living healthy lives and thinking healthy 
thoughts.” 

“Ethel, you’re not far wrong!” said Onverell, 
and Mrs. Onverell added: “Many a camping 
trip has been far more unpleasant. Think of all 
the grand opera we have escaped ! And all the 
round of post-Easter functions! When I remem- 
ber them, there is balm in Gilead.’ ’ 

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Forrest, “are you 
really all content to stay here with the city in 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


133 


ruins down there and all you own gone up in 
smoke, with nobody to save the wreckage for 
you if there is any? Why — ” 

“Don’t be an ass, Bob,” broke in Onverell. 
“Perhaps we’re not all as contented as you 
imagine, but there’s such a thing as ‘takin’ your 
medicine graceful !’ Strong, what do you say about 
the picnic?” 

“It seems to me we take Strong’s medicine, 
not our own, ” retorted Forrest. “ What difference 
does it make what he says?” 

“Because he knows; I follow the man who 
knows. ” 

“You make me sick!” exclaimed Forrest in 
disgust. 

Strong, who had been talking aside with Jose, 
looked up. 

“No picnic today; I’m afraid we’re in for a 
hard norther. I had hoped that it was too late 
in the season for them, but there’s no mistake 
about this.” 

“Oh, Mr. Strong!” said Mrs. Onverell in dis- 
appointment, and Ethel added : 

“But just see how clear and beautiful every- 
thing is!” 

In truth the haze had vanished, and cliffs and 
meadow stood out in a clear, many-hued light 
with wonderful distinctness. The others, noting 
it, exclaimed with pleasure, but Strong shook his 
head. 


134 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“That wonderful coloring is the sure fore-runner 
of the north wind. It seems to have a strange 
electrical effect on the atmosphere. See here.” 

He took a little leather note-book from his 
pocket and held it out to them. The covers were 
curled back as if subjected to a great heat. A 
little celluloid calendar protruded from the leaves. 
He rubbed this up and down against his sleeve. 
A sharp crackling noise resulted. “In the dark 
you could have seen the sparks, ” he said. 

“Then you really think we can’t have our 
picnic?” asked Ethel. 

“Doesn’t that answer your question?” he 
replied, as a sharp gust whirled dust into their 
faces. “In an hour it will be blowing so hard 
that you would be forced to seek shelter.” 

“I love the wind,” declared Ethel, half rebel- 
lious. 

“There are winds and winds.” 

“Lord, yes,” broke in Jose, “why, ma’am, 
down in Texas I’ve seen the fleece bio wed clear 
off a sheep’s back ’s if he’d been sheared.” 

“See here,” exclaimed Forrest, “this is all 
rotten nonsense. The day’s as beautiful a one 
as I ever saw. We’re going to carry out our 
picnic as we planned. ” 

“Have you ever experienced a north wind in 
these mountains?” asked Strong. 

“No, but I guess we can stand it.” 

“I have,” said Strong, decisively. “We prob- 
ably shan’t feel it here in this meadow-pocket 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


135 


as we would out on the exposed mountain side, 
but we’ll need to keep away from trees and the 
neighborhood of loose rock. ” 

“Well, it will have to be worse than this to 
frighten me,” declared Forrest. “I’m accustomed 
to gauging my own risks. Who will come with 
me to the end of the valley?” 

Another gust of wind swept by them. It was 
filled with wonderful odors of pine and redwood, 
and the sound of it as it roared down from the 
upper levels was like a great organ note. 

“I’ll go!” said Ethel quickly. “I must. It’s 
glorious, it calls to me. We won’t go far nor stay 
long, and if it’s bad up there we’ll come back at 
once. ” 

A look of triumph crossed Forrest’s face. 
“That’s good, common sense!” he said. “We’ll 
certainly come back if it gets too much for us, 
but don’t expect us soon. If you change your 
mind about the picnic you’ll find us at the north 
cliff.” 

Mrs. Onverell and Jim looked at him uncertain- 
ly, but unaccustomed lines had appeared between 
Strong’s brows. Forrest noted it, and as he 
passed him he spoke to him in a low tone. 

“That’s rather a fiimsy excuse. Strong, to keep 
the girl away from me. Even she saw through 
it. I thought you meant to play fair.” 

Strong’s eyes held him for a moment. Some- 
thing flamed in their depths, then died out again. 


136 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


and Forrest realized that he was talking to a man 
who had mastered his passions. 

“I shall not interfere so long as you take care 
of her, ” he answered, with no trace of emotion. 

Forrest felt the heat of the other’s controlled 
anger react upon himself. 

“You’ll not interfere under any circumstances, ” 
he said fiercely. 

“Not while everything is right with her, ” Strong 
repeated. 

The look that leaped at him from Forrest’s eyes 
as he turned away thrilled him with a sudden, 
overwhelming joy. It was hate, the hate a man 
bestows only upon a rival whom he fears. No 
man had looked at him in that way since the hour 
of his tragedy. To fear another is to acknowledge 
his power. For ten years Strong had known pity, 
tolerance, contempt, but never respect. In the 
quick rush of emotion that surged through him, 
he was conscious of the full measure of his restored 
manhood. For the first time the possibility of 
winning this girl crept into his mind. Never 
before had he entertained the thought of anything 
further than their present companionship. His 
hungry soul had found it enough; he had not 
looked beyond it. Now Forrest’s own hand had 
opened the door for thoughts that left him amazed 
with new, wonderful possibilities. In his con- 
fusion he hardly noticed when she passed him, 
with something of the former coquetry in her 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


137 


laughing, side-long glance. But as he looked 
after her he knew that the old relationship be- 
tween them was ended. The open door could 
never be closed again; henceforward he was a man 
as other men, and the light of beautiful promise 
in her face was for him alone. The barrier that 
had loomed so large in his consciousness lost 
meaning and fell away. Nothing stood between 
them any longer but her own will. Truly, Forrest 
had brought about results that he did not purpose. 

The wind by this time had lost its fitful charac- 
ter and increased to a steady gale. The air had 
taken on a peculiar chill. The sound of it among 
the pines and firs was likeamighty organ’s music; 
the sight of their bending tops was profoundly 
impressive. As Forrest and Ethel made their 
way with difficulty along the stream, pine tassels 
and green sprays flashed by them in the sunshine, 
driven before the wind. Not a bird was to be 
seen. Apparently they had taken refuge in the 
depths of the hospitable firs. Young sugar pines, 
light and feathery, swayed almost to the ground. 
Silver pines, two hundred feet in height, bowed 
and chanted as if in worship, while their quivering 
foliage seemed kindled into a flame of white altar- 
fire. 

“What sounds!” exclaimed Ethel, “what color 
and motion!” Her face was pale with excite- 
ment. 


138 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“Yes,” assented Forrest, absently. “I never 
could see the use of winds. Seems like wasted 
energy. ” 

Ethel was conscious of a sudden, keen disap- 
pointment. The edge of her delight in the storm 
seemed unaccountably blunted. She found her- 
self wishing intensely for Strong, for his comments, 
his quiet delight in all natural, wholesome experi- 
ences, the bits of philosophy that he dropped 
unconsciously, stimulating her mind to think, her 
heart to feel. Could it be that those days in the 
valley-meadow were so rich and full for her be- 
cause of his companionship.^ The thought was 
startling, following so closely upon that other 
revelation of the early morning. Was it only his 
personality that had seemed to fill the new life 
with such promise — promise of what? Her half- 
formed conviction of disloyalty to the man beside 
her was swallowed up. Her longing grew over- 
whelming for Strong’s understanding presence 
with her in these ringing woods, which seemed 
everywhere filled with him, only him. 

She was frightened by this glimpse of her 
heart. With flushed cheeks and a look half of 
defiance she turned to Forrest, who walked beside 
her absorbed in his own thoughts. 

“Can’t you say something?” she demanded, 
abruptly. 

With the words came the understanding of 
all that the other would have said, and it did 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


139 


not need Forrest’s look of bewilderment to reveal 
to her how entirely at a loss he was to fill her 
need. What had they ever said to each other in 
the days before this great experience? How had 
their minds ever met on common ground? She 
found herself puzzling over it quite impersonally, 
and glanced at him once more with a little shock 
of contrition. 

Of all this Forrest saw nothing. He strode 
along the path with head bent against the wind 
and gave an exclamation of relief when they reached 
their destination. 

“Here we are,” he exclaimed more cheerfully. 
“Now I’ll get to work, and you make yourself 
<iomfortable there by that juniper.” 

But Ethel was gloriously excited by the storm 
which seemed to increase in volume every moment. 
Her hair was whipped about her face which 
glowed rosily, her eyes were alight. In such a 
mood inaction was not to be endured. 

“I want to do my share. Bob, ” she said, “there’s 
so much to do here always. Nobody can afford 
to be idle. ” 

She fell to work, pulling up the long meadow 
grass and tossing it into a pile beside her, while 
he began to cut away the branches of a willow 
near by. But in a moment he stopped and looked 
at her discontentedly. 

“Won’t you do what I ask of you? I’m not 
Strong, to stand by and see a woman work. 
There’s no need for you to spoil your hands.” 


140 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


Ethel laughed outright to discover how far 
away she had drifted from the old standard of 
lady-like indolence. Here was where Forrest’s 
code would still have held her, and she had gone 
out from it so far into the new world of service, 
— the world that expected and needed her best. 
She moved impatiently. 

“Pretty hands belonged to the old days. If 
they can’t be useful hands they have no place 
here.” 

Forrest looked at her at last with some curiosity. 
He became conscious of something hostile in her 
attitude. 

“Please yourself, of course,” he replied. “If 
you want to work like a nigger, I won ’t make any 
objection. ” 

She paused for a moment to regard him gravely. 
A conviction possessed her that it was only fair 
to try and make him understand. 

“Don’t you see. Bob,” she said, “that a real 
woman isn’t always going to be satisfied with 
trifles? The need of service is the deepest need 
of every created being, though sometimes it 
requires an earthquake to show us the truth.” 

He looked at her, branch in hand, a puzzled 
expression in his eyes. 

“How changed you are, Ethel,” he said. 

She shrugged her shoulders as if throwing off a 
responsibility. “Then you’d better change, too. 
Bob, for the man I marry must let me share in 
everything that makes up our lives together.” 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


141 


Forrest’s bewilderment grew. “Everything?” 
he repeated, incredulously. 

“Yes. A year or two ago a large city gave a 
certain man a contract to build a postoffice. 
Before the work was well begun the man died. 
His wife took up his contract and carried the 
building on to completion for the honor of his 
name. Another man owned a large wholesale 
business. Hard times came and the man was 
on the point of failure. He was afraid to tell his 
wife, and contemplated suicide. But she found 
out all about it, and while he lay sick, from shock 
and worry, she went into the wholesale house and 
coaxed unwilling clerks and cajoled pressing 
tradespeople and carried things along day by day 
until the crisis was over. When he was well again 
he found his business in better condition than 
ever. That ’s the kind of wife I want to be. ” 

A peculiar expression crossed Forrest’s face. 
“I’d rather you kept your hands off my business, 
he said rather grimly. 

She looked at him with disconcerting directness. 

“Are you afraid of what I might find out?” 

“Of course not,” he said shortly, flushing in 
spite of himself. 

She turned away from him and began to pull 
vigorously at the grass and weeds. The wind, 
which had paused for a moment as if to gather 
energy, leaped at them down the canyon in a long- 
drawn, ominous roar. 


142 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“Listen to that, ” she exclaimed in some dismay. 

He threw down the branch he held and crossed 
over to her. 

“Ethel,” he said rather hoarsely. “You’ve 
changed so much in other ways — it hasn’t made 
you feel any different towards me, has it.f^” 

She hesitated. What she would have said 
neither one of them was to know. At that moment 
the gust of wind which they had heard approach- 
ing struck the fringe of the wood where they were 
with appalling fury. Branches and leaves fled 
before it, the breath was beaten from their bodies; 
close at hand there was a sharp, warning crack, 
and a great oak, rotten at the heart, fell prostrate 
at the foot of the cliff. 

“We must get away from these trees,” gasped 
Ethel. “Mr. Strong was right, it was not safe to 
come. ” 

It was a wrong suggestion, the use of Strong’s 
name, she saw it at once. Forrest’s look, which 
had expressed only hesitation, grew ugly and 
determined. 

“Strong!” he exclaimed. “Do you think I’m 
not as much of a man as Strong, and as well able 
to take care of you? Come here with me under 
the trees until this blows over. It’s our best 
chance of shelter. ” 

':^JIe caught her by the arm, but she wrenched 
herself free. 

“It’s not safe,” she cried, “look at that!” 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


14S 


A large limb whirled by them and fell a few 
feet away. 

“I tell you to come with me!’’ he shouted above 
the roar of the wind, but she leaped suddenly 
back, pointing over his head. 

“Bob,” she cried, “Oh, Bob!” 

Awed by her look, he turned quickly. “God!” 
he exclaimed. He felt himself caught and hurled 
far away into oblivion, and darkness closed over 
him. 

H: 4: ^ 

Strong was at work lustily propping supports 
against the shack, which threatened to go over, 
when it seemed to him that he heard himself 
called in the voice whose every tone he knew by 
heart. He looked up sharply. No one was in 
sight, but this did not surprise him. The sixth 
sense that belongs to the dweller in solitudes had 
served him in this way before. He threw down 
his hammer without a moment’s hesitation, and, 
calling to Jose to follow, ran toward the northern 
end of the valley as swiftly as an Indian. 

In a few moments he had caught sight of her. 
“Here I am,” he shouted to her above the shriek- 
ing wind, and her answering cry held no surprise, 
only a great thankfulness. She was bending over 
the prostrate body of Forrest, whom it was evident, 
by the broad trail through the brush and her own 
exhaustion, that she had dragged from under the 
trees out into the open meadow. His face was a 


144 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


dark crimson, his clothes were torn. He showed 
no sign of consciousness. 

Strong uttered an exclamation and bent over 
him. 

“He would take shelter there among the trees,’’ 
said Ethel. “Two of them fell, and the second 
one caught him. Will he live?” 

“He is only stunned, I think,” said Strong, 
rising. “He will come to himself presently. 
But you — ” 

“I am all right,” she said, hastily, unable to 
meet his look. “I saw it coming and so escaped. ” 

“Were you frightened?” 

“Oh, dreadfully, especially because I felt that 
I was doing wrong to be here. Like a child, I 
expected the punishment to follow.” 

He laughed and she joined in his laughter. 
And suddenly everything seemed attuned to 
laughter — the intense blue of the sky, the lessen- 
ing music of the wind, the faint, reviving chirp of 
the birds. A strange happiness possessed them 
both. Still she did not dare meet his look, for 
the moment of his coming had been another 
moment of revelation in the wonder of its relief 
and joy. 

Jose, who had followed closely after Strong, 
came panting up. “Phew! Seems to me you 
need a veterinary here, ” he remarked. 

“You mean a doctor, I suppose,” said Strong. 

“Nope, I don’t. It takes a veterinary to 
doctor a mule.” 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


145 


They carried Pjprrest back to camp on an 
improvised stretcher. At Strong’s assurance that 
he would be all right in a day or two they left 
Annunciata to attend on him and ate their picnic 
dinner around the fire, for the wind was falling 
rapidly. The happy confusion that possessed 
Ethel rang in her voice and broke out into bub- 
bling laughter, it looked shyly and sweetly out of 
her eyes. Strong’s voice also was deep with a 
a new resonance, though he spoke little, and to 
the words he did not utter her soul was listening. 
It was too soon for either to question or consider; 
they were conscious only that behind each simple 
look or act of theirs toward each other lay some 
beautiful meaning. 

Forrest, coming to himself again in the shelter 
of the shack, heard their voices with the strange^ 
new note in them and knew that he was defeated. 
Weak, suffering, full of morbid self-pity, he turned 
his face to the wall and buried it among the pillows,. 


Chapter XII 


T WO days later, in the gray of a cloudy 
morning, Forrest dragged himself up from 
the fern bed Annunciata had made for 
him at the rear of the shack and came 
with unsteady steps toward the fire, where 
Onverell sat talking with Jose. The north wind 
was still blowing, but it was little more now than 
a fresh breeze. To Forrest, in his weakened 
condition, its peculiar chill was very penetrat- 
ing, and he held out his hands to the blaze like 
an old man. 

Breakfast was over and the rest of the party 
had disappeared. Annunciata ’s voice was heard 
near by, crooning a weird sort of a chant, but 
Onverell and Jose were the only two in sight. 
Onverell was working over a rude box that he 
was fashioning for some necessity of his wife’s, 
and looked up as Forrest approached. 

“Well, Bob,” he said, cheerfully, “feeling 
better? That was a hard knock you got.” 

“I’m all right,” muttered Forrest. 

Jose regarded him with something like a grin 
twisting his battered countenance. 

“They say children and fools has luck,” he 
remarked. Forrest made no reply except to 
stare at him, and Jose relapsed into a chuckle. 
146 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


147 


“You were lucky to get off so easy,” agreed 
Onverell, resuming work on his box. He was 
evidently of the opinion that a little light con- 
versation would be good for the invalid. 

“I suppose so,” assented Forrest without 
interest. 

“What were you up there among the trees for?” 
questioned Onverell. “Ethel didn’t tell us much 
about the accident.” 

“Queer time of day for anybody to think he’s 
a bird,” said Jose, still chuckling. 

“Confound the accident!” exclaimed Forrest, 
“I’m sick of it.” 

“You sure do look slim,” said Jose. Evidently 
something tickled him mightily. 

“All right, of course,” returned Onverell rather 
stiffly, but Forrest got up from his place all at 
once and walked over to him with an air of deter- 
mination. 

“Look here, Onverell, I’d like to talk to you 
alone a few moments. ” 

“That means me for the timber,” said Jose, 
sadly, and he walked slowly away. 

“What is it, old man?” asked Onverell, his 
warm heart rallying to any suggestion of need. 
“Sit down here, you look rather seedy yet. 
Let ’s talk it over. ” 

Forrest sat down obediently. His face was 
white, but it was not bodily weakness that gave 
it the expression Onverell had noted. 


148 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


'‘Jim/’ he said, “haven’t you seen what was 
going on here?” 

“What do you mean, Bob?” 

“I mean Strong. Jim, he’s trying to win Ethel 
away from me, and if something isn’t done about 
it he may succeed. ” 

“Oh, come now. Bob. ” Onverell looked at him 
in some alarm. The idea, never having occurred 
to his unsuspecting nature, seemed so preposter- 
ous that he wondered if Forrest were not delirious. 

“It’s the truth,” said Forrest more quietly. 
“He’s a dangerous man, any one must acknowl- 
edge that, and she’s shut into this place with him 
where she can’t help seeing him day after day. 
Then he knows just enough about life in the open 
to pose as a hero under these circumstances. 
She’s forgotten what his past is. I’m not blam- 
ing her, she’s just drifting, but he knows what 
he’s about.” 

“Are you sure?” asked Onverell, remembering 
vaguely certain things that seemed to lend 
credence to Forrest’s statement. 

“Sure? Yes, I’m sure. Why, man, haven’t 
you noticed? She goes fishing with him, she 
goes hunting with him. He brings her the first 
violets, he teaches her how to trap a rabbit. And 
she is charmed with it all; she has no eyes nor 
ears for any one but Strong. Surely you have 
noticed. ” 

“Well, perhaps,” admitted Onverell. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


149 


“You see. Then aren’t you enough my friend 
to help me put a stop to it?” 

“But — ” said Onverell. 

“Look here, Jim, you are more or less responsi- 
ble for this thing. The man was invited to your 
home. Why, you don’t seem to realize what it 
will mean to her, leaving me out of it, when we 
get away from here — and no one in his senses 
supposes we’re going to stay here forever.” 

Onverell’s brows came together in a frown of 
intent thought. 

“You’re right,” he said at last. “I hope you 
exaggerate the thing, but, at any rate, you’re 
right. I ought to have noticed. They mustn’t 
be together again.” 

“Then you’ll help me?” asked Forrest, a light 
coming into his eyes. He had never loved Ethel 
so well as in these hours of uncertainty. The 
wish to possess her utterly was like a fever in his 
veins. His ears were strained to catch the light- 
est accent of her voice, his eyes followed her 
burningly. 

“What do you want me to do?” asked Onverell. 

“I want you to speak to Strong, to tell him to 
let her alone. ” 

“That’s not easy. Bob.” 

“It’s got to be done. My hands are tied 
because my interest in the matter bars me out. 
But you can remind him of that dirty past of his 
that he seems to have forgotten, and tell him 


150 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


that to force his companionship on any decent 
woman is an insult. I tell you, Onverell, that 
if the thing isn ’t ended there ’s going to be trouble. 
I won’t stop at anything.” 

“We’ll fix it up somehow, Bob, don’t you 
worry. ” 

“You’ll speak to him, then.f^” 

“Yes, if that will do the work.” 

“It’s got to do the work, or else I’ll end the 
thing in my own way. ” 

“All right. I’ll see what he says about it.” 

“He’s coming now. I’ll go and give you your 
chance. ” 

Forrest strode off in the direction of the brook. 
Onverell stared after him, the frown on his good- 
natured face growing deeper. He did not look 
around when Strong approached, though he was 
aware that he had paused beside him. 

“Our friend is himself again, I see,” remarked 
Strong, his glance also following Forrest’s rapid 
retreat. 

Onverell studied the box in his hand for a 
moment. 

“No,” he said at length, “Forrest isn’t all 
right. Strong.” 

“Not feeling quite up to the mark, eh? Well, 
it was a nasty fall. ” 

“It’s more than the fall that’s wrong with him, 
much more.” 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


151 


Onverell raised his head and looked Strong 
squarely in the eyes. There was significance in 
the glance, and Strong’s face settled into the ex- 
pressionless mask he had learned to wear in the 
past. Seeing him so, Onverell was startled to 
remember how his whole look and manner had 
altered of late. 

“You mean — ?” questioned Strong quietly. 

“I think you know what I mean. Strong. I 
think any honorable man would keep hands off.” 

The eyes of the two men met squarely, and in 
Strong’s there was something masterful, some- 
thing that did not falter nor concede. It was the 
look of a man who knew his ground and was 
prepared to defend it. Onverell was conscious of 
a sudden thrill of respect. This was no longer the 
social outcast he had received so grudgingly into 
his house. Dimly he began to suspect something 
of the man’s real strength, and to realize that 
other and bigger forces were at work here than 
either he or Forrest knew. 

“Will you be good enough to state your mean- 
ing plainly, ” said Strong again. 

Onverell bolstered his failing resolution. “WQiy, 
you see, Forrest and Miss Stanton are — that is» 
there’s an understanding between them; has been 
for some time. You — she leaves him alone day 
after day while she goes fishing or hunting or 
tramping through the woods with you. Natural- 
ly, he objects. ” 


152 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


There was a moment ’s pause, then Strong spoke 
again, still quietly. 

“I understand that you are speaking as Mr. 
Forrest’s friend.” 

“Yes.” 

“Have you forgotten that Miss Stanton is a 
free agent?” 

“Confound it, Strong,” broke out Onverell 
hotly, “can’t you see what you are doing to the 
girl? I tell you we won’t stand for it. She’s 
here as my guest. I’m responsible to her people 
for her. Even if she was not promised to my 
friend, I couldn’t stand for it. You certainly 
don’t need that I should tell you why?” 

“I might remind you that I am also your 
guest,” said Strong slowly. 

Onverell bit his lip. “ Yes, of course, ” he began. 

“As you say, you stand in the place of Miss 
Stanton’s guardians, but even that does not give 
you the right to draw conclusions as to her feeling 
toward anyone. It is not a matter to be discussed 
between gentlemen. But for myself, you are 
right, I love her and I shall win her if I can.” 

“Then Forrest was not mistaken!” exclaimed 
Onverell. 

“Forrest!” said Strong. “She belongs to the 
best, the strongest. The old order of things 
which would have given her to him has been swept 
away. Even if we get out of here we’ll go back 
to a city of ruined fortunes, where the conditions 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


15S 


to be faced can only be met by strong men. A 
man’s past will be a clean slate. There will be 
new standards, new opportunities. It is what one 
can do now that will count, what he may be able 
to do in the future. ” 

The truth of this came home to Onverell like 
a blow. He saw, as never before, how completely 
the old order of things might have passed away; 
how that which might have been impossible was 
impossible no longer. In primitive conditions 
force was the only lord. 

‘‘It will be the days of ’50 over again,” went 
on Strong, kindling with the bigness of the vista 
his words called up. “We’ll have to build a new 
city. I tell you, none but the strong man will 
have any place there. All the old ruts are ploughed 
out. Life will never be the same again for us, 
my friend, and the woman will belong to the one 
who can take care of her.” 

“And you, of course, are that man!” said 
Forrest ’s voice hoarsely behind them. He parted 
the willows by the brook and came toward them. 
The intensity of his feeling had driven him back 
to the battle-ground of his hopes. Evidently he 
had heard enough to rouse him to fierce anger. 
His face was crimson and his eyes bloodshot. 
He approached Strong quickly, his arms swinging 
at his sides as if he with difficulty refrained from 
striking at him. Onverell, in some alarm at his 
look, placed a restraining hand on his shoulder, 
but he shook it off. 


154 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“Let me alone, Onverell, I won’t he made a 
fool or a child of any longer. A strong man, is 
he? Well, he’ll find that I’m a strong man, as 
well as clever enough to see through his schemes 
and to block them. ” 

“Come now. Bob — ” 

“So you swallow all this, too, do you, Onverell; 
about the world being made over new, with a 
chance for every jail-bird to bury his past and 
walk off with all the prizes? I want to ask you 
one thing — if that new world out there is going to 
do so much for him, why isn’t he in a bigger 
hurry to get back to it? He could have us out 
of here in twenty-four hours if he wanted to. 
— Yes, you could. Strong, and you know it. A 
man with your knowledge of wood-craft could 
find a dozen ways of escape if you wanted to 
escape. ” 

“You’re mad,” said Onverell. 

“No, I’m not mad. See, he doesn’t deny it. 
He means to keep us here, I tell you. He’s 
playing his own hand and we ’re his pawns. Don ’t 
you see what he wants? They’ll go on with their 
hunting and fishing trips until the girl has to 
marry him. That’s the kind of strong man he 
is, damn him — ” 

“You hound!” 

It was Strong’s voice at last. A white-faced 
girl, who had come unnoticed to the door of the 
shack, found herself thrilling from head to foot 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


155 


for joy at the words and the way in which they 
were spoken. 

For Forrest had struck out, blind with rage, 
and Strong had shaken him off as one shakes off 
a child, so that he staggered and fell. And 
Strong towered above him with blazing eyes and 
fist clenched, hurling hot words at him that hit 
as square and true as blows. 

“You dare to call yourself the protector of this 
girl, when it’s your own tongue that has spoken 
the first word to defame her! Say that you 
lied — say it!” 

The man at his feet writhed a little, then Ethel 
caught the muttered words, “I lied.” 

“You fool!” said Strong, and the words hissed 
like the fall of a lash. “You can’t even take care 
of yourself nor save your own skin when you’re 
thrown out of the only environment you know. 
And you would reach your futile, dirty hands up 
to claim her, a woman as fine and white as a lily. ” 

Ethel, listening at the blanket which formed 
the shack door, thrilled again with the joy which 
is the joy of the primitive woman seeing herself 
desired supremely and contended for by two 
masterful wills. She was wholly feminine at that 
moment — wholly human. For an instant she 
experienced the world-old sensation that all this 
had happened to her before, long ago. She pressed 
her hand against her heart to quiet its beating 
and strained her ears to listen. She half expected 


156 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


Strong to turn from the prostrate body of his 
enemy, and, seizing her in an iron embrace 
against which it would be useless to struggle^ 
bear her away, helpless yet unafraid, to some 
far cave he called his home. 

Then she started with a quiver of her whole 
body, for Strong had turned away from the inert 
Forrest, who made no effort to rise. He was 
coming straight toward her. She grew faint for 
a moment; the beating of her heart shook her; 
she half swayed toward him and closed her eyes, 
as if she felt the strength of his arms about her. 
Then she gave a quick gasp, for he had passed 
the shack so closely that the sleeve of his shirt 
brushed her hand, and the glimpse she had of his 
face as he passed dulled the wild beating of her 
heart into a heavy quiet, for it was white, tense, 
stricken. 

Strong had neither seen nor felt her presence. 
Another face was before his eyes. Forrest’s inert 
form stretched on the ground at his feet, forehead 
crimson and veins swollen with rage, had called 
all up in a moment another scene like this. For- 
rest’s had become the swollen purple face of his 
commanding officer, leering up at him horribly 
from the ground. Before it his passion went out 
like a dying flame, and he turned and strode off 
into the thick woods, farther and farther away 
toward the fallen boulder that marked the only 
entrance to the meadow. He hurried along like 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


157 


a man who is hunted, not following any regular 
path, but parting the branches of the trees before 
him, forcing his way recklessly through the tangle 
of undergrowth. So, at last, after an interval of 
effort that left him breathless but calmer, he 
emerged on the very shoulder of the fallen rock, 
at a point where he could look out over the broken 
trail and the thousand-foot chasm below. 

Without his full recognition his movements 
had possessed meaning and purpose. In the 
tumult and surge of tragic memories and new born 
fears something was beating against the doors of 
his consciousness persistently — imperatively. It 
was this he had come out here to face, alone. As 
soon as he relaxed the tension of his body and 
dropped exhausted on a rock to breathe, he knew 
why he had come and what he must do. 

Forrest had declared, before he had forced the 
lie back into his cringing face, that he, Strong, 
could find a way out of the valley if he chose. 
Strong, sitting there alone, his head buried in his 
arms, knew that it was not a lie. There were 
ways he had not tried, many ways, and each held 
a fair promise of success. Looking into his soul 
he knew that he had not intended to get away, 
that the very thought was an agony that had 
threatened to wreck all the patiently wrought 
fabric of his manhood. It was against this sug- 
gestion that he had fought; it was to stifle it that 
he had stretched this other man at his feet, and 


158 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


only the mercy of God had prevented a repetition 
of a former tragedy. He sat there appalled at 
such self-revelation, sick with loathing of him- 
self and fear of what he knew he must do. 
Yet he argued with his heart fiercely, putting the 
inevitable moment off — holding it back. 

“What is there for her out there more than I 
could give her here? — a ruined city; her father’s 
fortune swept away like countless others; pesti- 
lence, possibly; certain famine. Here is safety, 
peace, long days, golden sunsets, quiet nights 
under the stars, health, and the song of birds.” 

He would have added, the beauty of their 
companionship, but for the realizing sense that 
such companionship was possible no longer. 
Others had laid rude hands upon it, the deepening 
knowledge of their own hearts had forced them 
beyond its safe barrier out into uncertain waters. 
Henceforth it must be either more or less. Which? 
The cry of his longing was almost an audible thing 
in its intensity. Was he, a man whose life had 
been a waste and desert place with scarcely a 
fiower, to give up, even as she was won, this 
woman in whose eyes lay the land of promise 
for his weary soul? 

The noon-day sun lay hot upon the meadow, 
which swam in a golden haze. One or two buz- 
zards circled lazily overhead. The heat of ap- 
proaching summer was tempered by the hidden 
snows of the upper canyons into an atmosphere 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


159 


of balmy freshness that touched his body with 
radiant warmth. The meadow at this noon hour 
seemed a garden of forgetfulness — a drowsy, lotus- 
eating paradise. Its call was the honey-sweet 
song of some eastern houri, inviting the tired 
traveler to rest and delights that steal from him 
forever the memory of his wanderings. To the 
very centre of his being he thrilled in response 
to this call, with its magic lure of heart’s desire. 
He groaned and buried his head in his arms. 

Then something seemed all at once to draw him 
to his feet so that he stood erect. And out of the 
flame of the noontide she came along the trail his 
hasty flight had left and stood beside him. He 
turned his face from the light of promise in her 
eyes and said no word to her, because the great- 
ness of the tumult in his heart left him dumb. 

So at last she was forced to speak, though her 
look grew wistful and uncertain at the necessity 
he laid upon her to bare her heart. 

“I had to come,” she said, “because I seemed 
to know what it was you were going to do.” 

He looked at her still dumbly. For what he 
felt there were no words. So she went on again, 
hesitating pitifully, searching his face. 

“I heard what they said, I saw by your look 
what you would do. Must it really come to an 
end, all these wonderful days.^^ This is the dawn 
meadow. I know now that I never lived before 
I found it. It holds in its arms the day and all 
her promises.” 


160 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“But not their fulfillment,” he answered her, 
breaking his silence at last, and the words were 
the stifled agony of his heart. 

“Where will that be.^” she half whispered. 

“God knows.” 

She moved a little towards him, her fingers 
touching his sleeve. The woman he had called 
to life, the soul that slept beneath butterfly wings, 
looked at him from her eyes. He grew white, 
his breath came in a quick gasp — then, suddenly, 
his arms were about her with all the iron intensity 
she had fancied, his lips were pressed on hers. 

“I love you!” he said, “I love you! You are 
my life and soul!” 

She clung to him with hands that trembled. 
“Let me stay with you,” she pleaded, “don’t 
send me away.” 

“You could be happy with me?” he asked, 
incredulous, in spite of all her eyes told him. 

“Anywhere, with you.” 

“But have you forgotten what I am — ? 

She placed her hand over his lips. “You are 
my strong man. ” 

“But the other — Forrest?” 

“There is no other — I know now that there 
never was.” 

The light of the noontide fell about them; she 
raised her eyes to his face and their promise was 
all fulfilled. Doubts, scruples, hesitation were 
forgotten; he tasted his first draught of a happi- 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


161 


ness that seemed to steal away his senses, he set 
foot at last in his own country. 

Then, all at once, a sound broke the divine 
silence in which they were wrapped. It was the 
long-drawn, distant, but unmistakable whistle of 
a railroad train. 


Chapter XIII 


his head and stared 
the direction of the 


S TRONG raised 
incredulously in 
distant sound. 

“What was that!” he said. 

As a little while before the sight of his face had 
stilled the rapid beating of her heart and driven 
her to follow him across the ragged trail his flight 
had made, so now something in his tone pierced 
through the wonder of the moment like a blow. 

“It was a train whistle,” she answered mechan- 
ically. 

“You heard it.^ Then there is no mistake! 
Good God!” 

She looked at him in dull wonder, jealous that 
anything should break in upon their perfect 
moment. 

“Don't you understand what it means,” he 
said, in a voice so altered that she would not 
have recognized it, “don’t you see?” 

“What?” she questioned, a feeling of cold 
dismay growing at her heart. 

“If there are trains, there must be railroads; 
and if there are railroads, there must be a city, 
many cities. Things out there must be about as 
they have always been. And we have believed — 
what haven’t we believed!” 

162 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


163 


He broke off abruptly and they stood in silence, 
looking out over the pass with strained eyes that 
seemed to see the bustle and traffic of the great 
city. As if that distant whistle had been a signal, 
the channel of past experiences, so magically 
closed for a few brief weeks, was thrown open 
once more and the old life rushed in upon them 
and drove them back with a dizzying swirl into 
thoughts and habits of past years. 

The effect upon Strong was strange and terri- 
ble. His shoulders lost their erectness and 
settled into their former droop. The light of 
freedom and hope in his face dimmed and went 
out, and in their place the expressionless mask, 
which had been his defense against the world, 
settled over it heavily. It seemed that nothing 
could ever lift it again. The old Strong stood 
there at last, the social outcast, the man who bore 
the heavy burden of a life tragedy. He took his 
arms from about the girl and stepped back. 

At this she looked up at him. “They are all 
out there, just as usual, perhaps,” she said 
slowly, “shopping, dancing, going to the opera. 
Perhaps my father and mother are there, wonder- 
ing about me.” Then her voice broke into a 
quick cry. “Oh, don’t take your arms away 
from me ! Let me feel your love, let me feel it!” 

But he stood quiet, and his head was bent. 

“It is all so strange,” she said again, “so 
very lonely.” 


164 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


His arms made an involuntary gesture towards 
her, then they fell at his side. 

“It will seem all right in a little while,” he 
answered soothingly, “after all, it is more natural 
this way than the other. We must get out of 
here and find out the truth. ” 

“Then we must go away from here?” 

“Yes, it is right.” 

“When?” 

“Now, at once. We have stayed here too long 
already. ” 

“Oh no, don’t say that — don’t ever say that.” 

His face softened, he straightened his drooping 
shoulders a little. 

“You are right,” he said, and his voice was 
deep and richly musical. “Whatever comes, we 
will not say that. ” 

He moved away from her toward the trail by 
which she had followed him. She watched his 
movements with dry, intent eyes. 

“Come,” he said, “there are things to be done, 
but not here. No one shall ever come here again. ” 

He held the branches aside for her to pass, then 
drew them close again. Along the trail as she 
moved before him, he pulled the underbrush back 
into its place, obliterating the marks of their 
passing. 

In silence they made their way back to the 
meadow level and stopped beside the brook a 
little way from camp. She understood without 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


165 


words that he was preparing to take measures for 
their release, and she felt that he would be success- 
ful. A mist of pain and trouble was all about 
her; she saw and heard dimly, as if from far away. 
But he worked feverishly, as a man will who has 
a task beyond his strength and fears to fail. So 
she refrained from any word or question, and sat 
quietly on a rock near by, her eyes following him 
as before. She did not offer to help him as she 
would have done yesterday. In his stern hour 
of renunciation there was no place for her. She 
sat quiet and waited, without hope or expectancy. 

First, he made a pile of dead leaves and twigs 
and branches. These he kindled with a spark 
struck from a stone. When it was blazing hotly 
he began to strip green leaves and branches from 
the neighboring trees and threw them onto the 
blazing pile. The fresh sap hissed and sputtered; 
the blaze died down, and a thick, sullen smoke 
rose in its place. The north wind, which still 
blew lazily, carried this smoke far up over the tops 
of the trees and even past the cliffs and into the 
forest beyond. He stood looking at it for a 
moment, noting the direction of the wind carefully. 
Then he threw on more wood, dry and green, and, 
putting his finger to his lips, blew a shrill whistle 
three or four times in succession. 

Ethel heard the answering shouts from the 
camp, and soon could distinguish the approaching 
footsteps and voices. Still watching Strong’s 


166 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


face she saw the muscles about his mouth quiver 
at OnvereH’s hail and felt the keen response to 
his suffering in her own heart. She knew that 
from this hour her life was bound up in his life; 
that love had laid on her the burden of his pain, 
his strange, sad destiny. Yet she was not afraid, 
only glad with a very great gladness. 

The others came up, full of the excitement and 
the questions that attend the least happenings in 
solitary places. But when they saw Strong's 
tensely quiet look and Ethel's eyes, shining out 
of her pale face, they became aware that some- 
thing unusual and momentous was taking place, 
and they accepted Strong's few words of explana- 
tion silently, awed by his manner. 

“I want you to help make a smudge here that 
will be seen by the forest rangers on the higher 
levels. It is their duty to follow up the source 
of every fire. They will discover us and get us 
out.” 

Forrest, who had followed slowly behind the 
others, started forward at the words. His eyes 
sought Ethel's, hot, eager words rushed almost 
visibly to his lips. But at the sight of her look 
he checked himself, and the words died away 
unspoken, his flushed face turned white. For 
her he existed no longer; her eyes looked quietly 
past him, watching Strong's movements. 

But Onverell's excitement was rising rapidly. 
“That's a great idea!'' he exclaimed. “Why 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


167 


didn’t we any of us think of it before?” Then he 
stopped, and his jaw fell suddenly. “Will there 
be any rangers? They’ve probably hit the trail 
for somewhere else before now.” 

“We have been too credulous,” replied Strong, 
his voice quite without expression. “We didn’t 
make enough allowance for the imagination of a 
drunken Indian. An hour ago I heard the whistle 
of the train that runs to the junction fourteen 
miles away. That is a branch road. The fact 
that it is being used means that the main line is in 
order, and whatever disturbance the earthquake 
has caused, probably only a local matter, has 
already been remedied.” 

“Why, then — ” exclaimed Mrs. Onverell in 
the high voice of excitement. “Why, then — ” 

Their faces completed her unfinished sentence. 
They were all seeing the same mental picture, 
San Francisco as they had left it four weeks ago; 
its crooked streets; dusty brown houses, whose 
weather-beaten exteriors concealed rare treasure 
of art and luxury within; the big masses of stone 
and concrete that formed the down-town section; 
the whole bustling, teeming with gay, irresponsi- 
ble, insolent life. As in most great experiences, 
the reaction against the tragedy of loss and terror, 
once begun, was complete. The old city, the old 
life was restored to them in a moment of time, 
untouched by change or disaster. Already the 
emotions and experiences of the last four weeks 


168 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


began to seem far away, the whole situation 
monstrous and unbelievable. 

Mrs. Onverell spoke again, and her eyes were 
alight with a new expression, no longer clear and 
limpid with the long, simple thoughts of the open, 
but sparkling, complex, dangerous. “ Zinkand ’s ! ” 
she murmured, “the Palace Grill! Market Street! 
the Columbia, the milliner, the modiste! Well, 
it is still good to be alive! We’ll meet at the 
Palace one week from tonight, when Ethel and I 
have had time to get some gowns, and celebrate 
the oddest adventure that ever befell a house 
party.” 

“Kindly let me out on that, ma’am,” said 
Jose promptly. “A restaurant on the water 
front’s more my style.” He glanced at Annun- 
ciata’s dark face, “unless you make it a quiet 
table in some nice little show garden for me and the 
lady here.” 

The Indian woman met his glance with indigna- 
tion. She did not understand the words, but 
felt that he was making her an object of sport. 

“Ai yi!” she cried fiercely, turning her back to 
him. 

Mrs. Onverell’s gay, amused glance following 
the two, fell suddenly upon Strong. She paused, 
her face changed subtly, swiftly. What would 
the familiar world that was to claim them all 
so soon do with this man.^ He stood apart once 
more, a lonely figure touched with tragedy, strip- 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


169 


ped of the transient glory of his leadership. Out 
there in the restored city the sceptre of power 
was hers, her word might give him a place and a 
name. Should she speak it? She had only to 
confirm her carelessly spoken invitation, and she 
opened the door to him that had been closed so 
long. Behind it lay, for a man of his talents, 
success, advancement. She glanced up and her 
eyes met Forrest’s burning gaze fixed upon her. 
Behind him she saw the white face of Ethel, quiet, 
watching. Yes, that open door might lead him 
at last to the girl. The tension of the moment 
held them all. There was the making or marring 
of lives, perhaps, in the silence that fell upon them, 
in the words that should break it. 

But the spell of the dawn meadow was not 
entirely shattered by the tide of changing thought 
which had swept them back so swiftly into the 
old ways. Long hours of deep, quiet breathing 
under the open sky; the sharp, sudden contact 
with the primitive; its leveling of distinctions and 
its exaltation of the simple, elemental qualities 
which lie at the root of all greatness — the effect 
of all this was still written upon her heart and 
mind, in proportion as she had lent herself to the 
influences about her. Perhaps it never would be 
entirely effaced, even in the gay, thoughtless 
years to follow. She raised her head once fnore. 
The fingers of the north wind touched her fore- 
head as with a caress, the smoke arose about her. 


170 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


pungently sweet. Through its drifting folds, 
reaching now far into the afternoon sky, she saw 
a man stand with bent head. A pang of sympathy 
and understanding shot through her. She knew 
that his hands, preparing the branches for the 
fire that should light them to liberty, were plait- 
ing for himself a crown of thorns. If there was 
submission in the bent head there was dignity 
also. Suddenly she held out her hand to him and 
lifted to him a face alight with genuine feeling. 

“Mr. Strong, you must be the guest of honor 
at our party of reunion, for we all know in our 
hearts that without you our valley would have 
been a dreary prison with small hope of escape. 
Say that you will come. ” 

Strong took her hand in his and looked down 
into the glowing face. Again there was a moment 
of breathless tension. She had opened the door 
to him, would he enter it? That pride was fight- 
ing sharply was evidenced by the slow color that 
mounted to his forehead. Resentment, too, had 
its place, but most of all the passionate desire to 
wrest from the world, unaided, all that it denied 
him, so that its acceptance as a free gift at the 
hand of a woman seemed a mean and unworthy 
thing. But it was for moments such as these that 
the suffering of past years and the strength that 
he had learned to wrest from it had been fitting 
him. He waited quietly, looking down into her 
face until pride, resentment, self assertion passed 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


171 


one after the other and left his brain calm. Then 
his eyes, that studied her face so closely, began to 
see all at once the unwonted sweetness, the genu- 
ine feeling that had lain behind her words. He 
saw how, in a moment, she had thrown down all 
the barriers that society had built up against him, 
that she held out her hand to him to help him 
step across them, to realize their nothingness. 

He grew ashamed, repentant. The influences 
in which he believed so profoundly had been at 
work here for him also. The gift which this 
woman offered him was her highest realization of 
service, it was also the crown and seal of his long 
struggle to give the world a worthy life for the 
unworthy one he had taken from it. This was 
his supreme moment, and he had been in danger 
of losing it. His glance sought the faces about 
him — Forrest’s, white with the pallor of defeat; 
Onverell’s, half dismayed, but with real friend- 
liness in the eyes that met his. Last of all he 
turned to Ethel where she sat, passive, uplifted 
by her love beyond either fear or desire, awaiting 
his will. And this look on her face, the face that 
had been the light of his longing, hopeless dreams 
for so many years, brought the moisture to his 
eyes. Surely these weeks in the dawn meadow 
had been a new birth to them all, the world to 
which they were going back could not be the 
same world as before, since they themselves were 
different. Once more the sense of hope and 


172 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


freedom rushed in upon him; the droop left his 
shoulders, and he stood erect. 

He answered the sweet friendliness of Mrs. 
OnverelTs glance with a smile whose tenderness 
was not for her, but for the girl for whose sake 
he would hereafter reverence all women. 

“I will come,” he said. 

They set to work at brush and branches with a 
will, making a smudge that rolled far up over 
the tree tops and was carried by the afternoon 
breeze across the face of the western sky. At 
sunset the rangers came, three of them, outlined 
against the yellow glow as they dismounted from 
their horses and stood looking down into the 
valley. 

“We must lie low,” said Strong, “or they may 
content themselves with shouting us a warning 
and ride away again. If they see nobody they’ll 
have to find some way of getting down. Then we 
can explain our situation.” 

They hid among the aspens by the brook and 
watched and laughed with the joy of successful 
conspirators, — all but Forrest, who had with- 
drawn earlier into the shelter of the woods to 
hide the bitterness of his heart. They were full 
of an excitement that demanded expression, the 
long strain was relaxed. They laughed silently 
as they saw the rangers make their way from point 
to point, seeking a descending trail into the mead- 
ow, only to pause at last in evident bewilderment. 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


173 


“Tain’t so easy, pardner,” exclaimed Jose, 
^‘or we’d a been gone before now to where the 
drinks is.” 

“See what they’re doing,” said Ethel. She 
5at nestled near to Strong, chin on hand. She 
was beautiful in her self-forgetting earnestness, 
more beautiful than Strong had ever seen her. 
He forgot their rescue and the manner of it in 
watching her, and more than once he found the 
moisture in his eyes. 

“By gum!” said Jose, again, “they’re going to 
swing down by a rope and cut steps in that there 
sandstone cliff. That’s an old trick. Why, I’ve 
done that thing in Texas where the night was 
black as your hat and everything covered with 
sleet that thick you couldn’t find the rock under- 
neath it.” 

“Jose,” said Onverell, “isn’t your imagination 
a little — er — stimulated by the prospect of es- 
<;ape?” 

“ Stimmylated ! ” retorted Jose, mournfully, 
“well, not much! without you’d call this here river 
water stimmylatin ! It’s like a preacher man who 
was exhortin’ with me onct. ‘Son!’ he says, ‘come 
and join the army of salvation.’ ‘What division 
of that there army?’ says I. ‘The Temperance 
division, son,’ says he. ‘That’s not the 
army, that there’s the navy,’ says I. But 
wait, things is goin ’ to be different when I strike 
that Frisco town. ” 


174 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


One of the men on the cliff’s edge had fastened 
a rope under his arm pits. The other two stood 
ready to let him down. He had a hatchet in his 
hand. Now he swung off into space and found a 
momentary footing a little below the rim of the 
cliff. They caught the distant sound of the 
hatchet against the sandstone and saw the debris 
come hurtling down to be lost among the trees. 
Then those on top lowered him a few feet further. 

It was the northern end of the cliff where they 
had chosen to make their descent. A few of these 
artificial steps brought the ranger to the long 
column of juniper trees that clung to the face of 
the cliff. Here he waited a few moments while 
the other two came down to him, hand over hand. 
In a little while they appeared again at the foot 
of the wooded shoulder. 

Then they paused and seemed to consider. 
Something about the nature of the smoke, still 
rising thickly from below, seemed to trouble 
them. One of them bent over and put his 
hands to his mouth like a trumpet. 

“Anybody down there?” he called. His voice 
came to them faintly. 

Jose, who had gathered his long figure on the 
circumference of a tree stump, let forth a yell 
that would have done credit to a Comanche, and 
shot off his stump, running in the direction of the 
north cliff at top speed. 

“Blanked if it ain’t old Jimmy Tufts, Red 
Jimmy, that worked with me on the range!” 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


1T5 


he shouted back to the men who had gotten to 
their feet and were following him. Then to the 
distant figure on the shoulder of the cliff he began 
to pour out a picturesque greeting that surpassed 
any of his previous efforts. 

“Why, you old snoozer, what in the blankety 
blank are you doing here! Want to join our 
little picnic-party.^ This is sure one blank of a 
joke!” 

How much the rangers understood of this it was 
impossible to say. Enough, at least, to put an 
end to their hesitation and bring them overhand 
down the rope which they fastened to the lowest 
juniper tree. When they reached the ground 
they rushed upon the advancing Jose with one 
accord. What tale he told them, punctuated 
by what bursts of laughter and vocal fireworks, 
the onlookers could only guess. But in a few 
moments he turned to Strong. 

“Here’s where you make your get away,” he 
called. “Take your best clothes and hustle along. 
Uncle Sammy’s boys ’ll have you out of here in 
an hour. ” 

“So it’s good-bye to the meadow,” said On- 
verell. 

“And its hail to a hot bath and an evening 
gown and a supper at Zinkand’s, with steak three 
inches thick!” exclaimed Mrs. Onverell joyously. 
“The meadow will wait for us until we come 
again. ” 


176 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


“K it doesn’t become a lake,” said Strong. 

“Come on, Bob,” called Onverell to Forrest, 
who appeared just then, haggard and sullen, at 
the edge of the wood. “Get whatever ’s dear to 
you and come along. We’re out of here right 
away. ” 

“Thank God,” he answered briefly, turning 
toward the shack. 

“So it’s good-bye to the meadow,” repeated 
Ethel softly. “Look, here is our four weeks’ 
dream of an earthly paradise, a poem all bound 
in gold. ” 

The yellow sunset light flooded the cup-like 
valley to the brim, filled it until it overflowed. 
The beautiful peace of evening, descending from 
the blue peaks of the higher mountains, brooded 
over the meadow. Birds were chattering sleepily 
to each other among the trees. 

“Listen,” he said to her. “There is something 
in the world stronger than anything else — ^than 
pride or prejudice or a man’s own self — it is 
love. Some day we will come back here together. ” 

Those were the words she had been praying for. 
She looked up at him with a little tender cry. 

“I have no pride,” she said, “you are my 
strong man, I am the woman of your choice. 
That is all there is in the world. Take me away 
with you to your cave, wherever it may be.” 

“Do you mean it!” he said brokenly, “when 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


177 


your world is waiting out there? It seems to me 
I’m mad to think I even heard you say — ” 

“I have no world. You have made me love 
you so — . Oh, look at me!” 

She held out her hands to him and he looked 
down into the soul that had wakened from its 
slumber at his call. The light in her eyes blinded 
him, so that he seemed to stumble before it. 
Then he caught her once more in his arms, and 
the iron strength of his embrace told her that he 
would never let her go again. 

“All ready,” called Jose, a moment later. 

“ Come, ” said Strong to her. 

They turned away from the meadow without a 
backward look, for now they carried its magic in 
their hearts and the light of the promised land 
was all about them. He led the way and she 
followed. After them came Annunciata with a 
bundle slung over her shoulder. It mattered 
little to her where she went. She would carry 
her bundle contentedly over mountain trail or 
salt marsh, so that she might lay it down at night 
beside Strong’s camp-fire. Ethel, seeing the 
wrinkled, patient face, the adoring eyes that rested 
on Strong’s advancing form, laid her arm about 
the woman ’s shoulders in a sudden, warm pressure. 


Chapter XIV 


A n exulting wind swept up the bay the 
next afternoon and greeted a party of 
five in the bow of an Oakland ferry with 
a shout of welcome. Forrest had left 
them at the junction, Jose had gone off gaily with 
the rangers. The familiar sea fog fled before the 
wind, rifting, swirling in front of them, half prom- 
ising to reveal the hidden city their eyes were 
searching for so eagerly, again burying it more 
securely than before in its gray blanket. 

“It will lift for good in a moment,” said Strong. 
“We’ll see the Fairmount first,” murmured 
Mrs. Onverell, “then the houses on Russian Hill, 
our house. And we thought it was all gone! 
What a moment!” 

Then, before a stronger blast of the freshening 
trade wind, the fog began to lift again, thinning 
into a filmy veil, as if some kindly hand were 
delaying for them the inevitable moment of realiz- 
ation. 

“There’s the Ferry Building!” said Ethel 
leaning forward. 

“And the dome of the City Hall!” cried Mrs. 
Onverell. “What— Why!” 

The veil was withdrawn. Before them against 
the clear, pitiless sky, rose the tragic ruins of the 
178 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


179 


fire-swept city. The eastern slopes were an 
unbelievable waste, marked with isolated arches, 
columns, and broken walls. Above them towered 
the naked skeleton of the city hall. 

“God!” said Onverell, “look at that!” 

They stared incredulous, stunned. The shock 
was even greater than before, so complete had 
been their reaction. Onverell turned his head 
away from the sight, his wife sobbed openly upon 
his shoulder. 

It was Strong who spoke first. 

“The lower part of the city is gone, stores, 
hotels, warehouses — but look up beyond the 
hills — they must have stopped the fire there, all 
the outlying districts are saved.” 

His voice rang with excitement and Onverell 
turned his head to look. The boat, swinging a 
little to make its slip, showed them the long vista 
of ruins that had once been Market Street. 

“God!” he said again — then, “there are men 
there, at work.” 

Light leaped into Strong’s face like a flame. 
“It is magnificent!” he exclaimed. “Of course 
they’re at work. Every able bodied man has 
work enough for him there to pour new life into 
his body — to set his soul free. Why, man, feel the 
call of it! Your city, my city in ruins, and you 
and I to help give it a different and far greater 
tomorrow. It’s a new world after all, a world of 
unlimited possibilities. A clean slate for every- 


180 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


body. For months, years, perhaps, men will be 
at their best, they’ll show only the qualities that 
come to the surface in crises. It is magnificent!” 

Onverell’s eyes kindled with a faint glow. “It 
sounds so, the way you put it,” he said. 

Strong’s head was lifted, his voice rang 
convincingly, he was once more the leader. 

“I tell you we’re going to live!” he said in- 
tensely, “live as we have never lived before, and 
life is going to be service as it ought to be. It’s 
not any longer what the city can give to us, it’s 
what we can give to it. And that ’s enough for 
any man.” 

“Look up, Mayme,” said Onverell suddenly, 
“dry your eyes. Strong’s right. We owe the 
old city something, and we’re going to pay it. 
Do you see those streets there, stretching out 
toward the Golden Gate? We’re going to find 
a little shack out there somewhere and live in it; 
we’re going to begin all over again. And Mayme, 
— ” he lowered his voice — “perhaps there’ll be 
a child or two playing about the fioor. We’ll be 
poor enough now to afford them. ” 

lender cover of adjusting her cloak Strong 
caught Ethel’s hand. 

“All I owned in the world was in one of those 
big warehouses near the water front. I have 
nothing — nothing. And now I dare to ask you to 
share it with me. Will you help me in the big 
fight ahead?” 


THE DAWN MEADOW 


181 


She lifted to him a face perfectly happy, per- 
fectly at peace. “Perhaps it will be a cave after 
all,” she said. 







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